Rolandt

There’s a resurgence in products using text as the primary user interface. The most popular tool that uses text as a core UI is probably Microsoft Excel. Excel is a mostly-WYSIWYG application, but when interacting with formulas and programming cells, the interface of choice for most users is text – typing in formulas as textual information, not clicking buttons. When we want to take the sum over a row, most of us click on the cell and type =SUM(A3:A10) – we don’t click on a “sum” button or unfurl a dropdown menu.

This has been under construction for well over a year now and it's closing in.

It's one of those rare buildings in Vancouver that's actually somewhat interesting to look at. At least from afar. From what I can see so far, the close up / pedestrian view will be as boring as usual.

Decades of work undermined the ability of America to govern itself effectively and has resulted in this tragedy, an incalculable loss. Convinced that government was too incapble to govern, and attracted to the prospect of profitably taking it apart, a group of people have managed to make that reality come true through exploiting division and fear.

This is the reality we have created. One where the threat of a virus can’t be effectively responded to with the weight it deserves.

It didn’t have to be this way. No matter which party they affiliate with, we should endeavour to put into power people beleive that government is a service to the people, and not an impedement to profit at the public’s expense. We can argue about how big or how small government should be. We can keep having the discussion about states rights versus federal rights. We’ve all got opinions.

But we need to stop the idiocracy. Now.

Jarek Piórkowski on why Toronto needs more open space.

My similar suggestion for Charlottetown has, at least so far, produced no demonstrable result.

To the extent that I am an Internet trend-spotter¹, the next big thing is going to be limit my choices.

I don’t want a bookstore with all the books, or a million of the books, I want a bookstore with ten books. Ten good books.

An ice cream store with three flavours of ice cream. Web services with one simple plan (not Essentials, Pro, Essentials Pro, and Enterprise).

MUBI is this, for films: a streaming service with 30 films in its catalogue. Every day one new film joins and one film drops out. There’s a free seven day trial. So you can watch a sultry Bosnian road movie right now, no risk².

1. Which is not at all.
2. Not a sponsorship or affiliate link: I just think this is a good idea.

‘Tell us something interesting about yourself’ is the worst one.

Everyone panics trying to think of something not boring/but not arrogant to say about themselves. I’m not sure I can remember a single interesting fact anyone has shared in these icebreakers.

What’s your favourite book, movie, music album, TV, vacation spot, or memory is a lot easier and a lot more fun. People begin thinking of something positive – something they’re excited and happy to share about themselves.

How did you get into [topic]? Is also pretty good.

Great icebreakers don’t cause anxiety attacks.

It’s amazing to me how quickly something can become a habit; After only a couple months of one-way aisles, this weekend I was a little rattled with two-way traffic in the grocery store.

For context, North Carolina entered Phase II of our opening on Friday.

Just a little story about how I lost my assumptions about mask culture.

Here in Vancouver, over the past twenty years, it used to be very common to see people from Asia, specifically China, Japan, and Korea, wearing masks out in public. I have to admit that for a long time I felt it was kind of arrogant like you were wearing a mask because you didn’t want to contract something from me. To the naked eye, it didn’t look like folks were vulnerable. It looked like healthy, mostly young people were wearing masks to send a signal that somehow it wasn’t safe to be around me.

Last year, however, I was in Japan, and one day, crossing the street in Shinagawa, I saw tons of people wearing masks and I turned to my Japanese friend and straight out asked her “what’s the deal with everyone wearing masks?”

And she matter of factly replied “of course…because they are feeling a little bit sick and they don’t want anyone else to get infected.”

This realization hit me so hard that I may have actually stopped in my tracks, halfway across the street, on one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in Tokyo, upsetting the flow of pedestrians moving out from the busy Shinagawa station and causing a bit of grumbling from the folks behind me.

I was simultaneously overcome with gratitude, admiration, and shame. That was the beginning of my education in how key consideration for other people is as a rule in Japan. In general, folks there try to respect each other’s space, not to make noises too loud, to talk on their phones while on a train, to wait in traffic when there is a delay, or patiently line up for a ticket booth or a train. In a culture like that, of course wearing a mask is about consideration for other people.

These days I am wearing a mask when I am in my local village or in the city, and because of this particular epiphany, I find that when doing so I am a lot more conscious of my neighbours and the strangers around me. I wear a mask, because I might be infected with COVID-19 and be asymptomatic, and the kinder thing to do is to try and keep my breath to myself as much as possible.

Now I get why people are a bit put off wearing masks. I understand why people reason that “I’m not vulnerable, I probably won’t catch it, and anyway, the masks don’t protect you…” I get that because we live in a culture that prizes our individuality over consideration for others. We rationalize our behaviour based on our personal good first. And often that’s all the planning we do. The results of this behaviour are evident in things like climate change, or the inability to address the opioid crises, poverty or homelessness with radical solutions. The vast majority of people look at their own circumstances and believe that they are not connected to these problems, or that somehow they are immune to them.

In our culture, it takes an epiphany to change one’s view. It seems that one has to get sick, or become homeless or addicted before suddenly things become problems. We often hear stories of people who suddenly find themselves in dire straits complaining about the levels of service at hospitals for example, while for years they never paid attention as health care budgets were slashed to pieces.

One of the biggest lessons I took away from last year’s trip to Japan was about this culture of consideration, and it’s interdependance between the individual and the group (and yes knowing full well there are exceptions to the rule.) One of the things I am taking away from this pandemic is the same. There is no way out of this through an assertion of the individual over the health of the group. That is not how public health works. We must learn that our collective health is bound up in individual choices that we make and that our individual health and overall wellbeing is directly dependant upon the health and wellbeing of the group, and especially the most vulnerable in the group.

That is the lesson this pandemic is teaching us. Whether we learn this or not will very much determine how this thing will play out and what happens next in our world.

I long for condensing writing in a single space as it used to be with my weblog. But it ends up fragmented – platforms, conversations, themes, languages. Funny enough it is the coronavirus that has taught me to let go the attachment to “I wish it would be so” and write where and how I feel like writing.

Part of it is about accepting that Facebook has its time and place. One thing that it does better than any other social platform I experienced is bridging language boundaries – through the easiness of automatic translation and the prominence of posts with photos that speak to nonverbal in us.

That is very easy to see when I write about personal experiences or gardening and get replies in English, Russian and Dutch. I usually write in English or Russian, but a lot of things that I write about are related to the Dutch context. I hardly write in Dutch: it is fluent enough to have a scientific or deeply personal discussion, but I don’t feel that I can express myself fully in it, especially in writing.

The part that made blogging so fascinating for me is about bridging boundaries. While working on my PhD I wrote a lot on a blog as a boundary object that can connect different knowledge domains and different social networks just because its author chooses to write on a range of themes from a variety of own roles and identities.

This is something that I enjoy on the FB very much – conversations flowing between three languages and even more cultures and contexts. I enjoy being able to bridge language and cultural boundaries, exposing people from different countries to a context, a language and people different from what is usual for them. I think the world needs it. Especially now, when so many lives and livelihoods are at stake and polarisation, even on usually neutral themes, grows. There are enough forces that feed “us and them” discourse, but what I believe in and where I want to contribute is recognising those things that connect us and building on those, despite the differences and diversity.

The post Bridging languages and cultures appeared first on Mathemagenic.

Didn’t know you could call Google Translate as a formula in Google spreadsheets, to translate cells. Nice to know.

Bookmarked Translation in google sheets by john

the bicycle formerly known as kyle @theBicyKyle
I applaud the mayor for apologizing. twitter.com/johntory/statu…

Dieses kleine USB-Gerät wird viele Rätsel lösen. Es misst Spannung und Strom am USB-Port. Das ging ja mal alles ganz harmlos los mit 5V und 500 mA am USB-A-Anschluss. Mittlerweile gibt es USB PD und viele proprietäre Protokolle wie Quickcharge.

In dem Bild oben habe ich den Ladevorgang eines ThinkPad Yoga 4th gen an einer tizi-Tankstation Pro aufgezeichnet. Da es halb leer ist, zieht es mit 20 V gut 2,8 A oder 57 W aus der 90 W starken Tankstation. Da bleibt noch genug Power, um ein iPhone, ein iPad und ein Headset aufzuladen.

Das Messgerät hat drei Eingänge (USB-A, MicroUSB und USB-C) sowie zwei Ausgänge (USB-A und USB-C). Es zeigt nicht nur Momentanwerte an, sondern auch die Verläufe von Spannung und Strom, und es kumuliert auch den "getankten" Strom.

Einige der Rätsel, die das Messgerät gelöst hat: Surface Pro X lädt mit 20 V am USB-C-Port und mit 15 V am Surface-Connector, zumindestens mit meinem USB-C-Kabel. Der Apple USB-C-Lader von iPad Pro und iPhone 11 Pro kann nur 5 V mit bis zu 3 A (15 W) und 9 V mit bis zu 2 A (18 W). Das reicht nicht, um ein Ultrabook zu betreiben, bei dem schon die CPU bis 15 W zieht.

Danke, Oliver!

Update: Es gibt tatsächlich eine (ganz schlimme) PC-Software und eine Android App dafür. Beide brauche ich nicht. Aber ich musste mir das natürlich mal angucken. Die Software nutzt eine virtuelle COM-Schnittstelle, die per Bluetooth weitergegeben wird.

The Side Pocket is one of the weirdest gadgets I’ve used in a long time, but I couldn’t help but fall in love with its surprisingly sturdy design and ample versatility.

Regardless if you’re into the whole fanny pack trend or not, the coolest thing about the Side Pocket is an included 13,400mAh wireless charging portable battery pack. The battery and bag are both from Ampere, the battery is called the Full circle Wireless input and output power bank.

In terms of build quality, the battery doesn’t seem the nicest looking, but it sits at a nice angle on a table and has worked surprisingly well for me so far. Having the versatility of being able to pull it out of my bag and use it on a table was a nice touch. You can also wireless charge this power brick by placing it on a wireless charger. The rubber bumpers around the edge can also be pulled up and used to secure a phone to the device.

I was able to get it charging on both the Pixel Stand and the OnePlus 8 Pro wireless charger.

When it comes to the bag, the style might be hit or miss for some people, but I’m a pretty big fan of its compact design. It has a single small pocket on the front, a large main pocket with an RFID blocking sleeve and a few other compartments and hooks inside. The final pocket on the top is smaller and made so most phones can fit into it without sliding around too much. In my testing I was able to fit and charge a Pixel 3 XL, an iPhone 11 and the OnePlus 8 Pro.

Finally, on the bottom is another large pocket with a smaller mesh pocket inside it. This is where the portable battery goes, but you could in theory, pack a few extra things in here. If you’re wondering how the bag keeps the battery and phone from losing contact with each other, it’s actually a fairly simple solution.

When both the phone and the battery are inserted, there’s a stretchy strap inside the battery pocket that you can wrap around the phone and battery pockets to hold them in place. That combined with the already small pockets, works really well at keeping your phone charged. If your phone doesn’t support wireless charging, you can feed a cable through a small hole in the corner of the phone pocket.

To be 100 percent honest, when I was first offered the bag, I thought it might be a fun little story to write about, but I didn’t have a lot of faith in its hardware. I’m glad to say that the company has proven my initial impressions wrong and that I’m really satisfied with the Side Pocket. If you’re looking for a small bag to carry around and you want the added functionality of a wireless charger, the $86 CAD Side Pocket is an awesome deal.

The post Side pocket Fanny pack: Wireless charge your phone while defying the laws of style appeared first on MobileSyrup.

I have been tracking the fallout from Alan Odgaard’s post about Catalina and this seems like the sanest take on the subject so far.

I am, however, more than a bit annoyed that someone at Apple thought it was a good idea to design things this way. I mean, how insane is it that your Mac “phones home” whenever you run a new unsigned binary?

Besides the potential for failure (Apple has historically been mediocre at doing online systems, except for the iTunes/App Store, which is finely honed and cached up the wazoo), the potential for data gathering is serious enough that I can see Macs being banned from use in public sector clients outside the US (development or not).

And even if it can be argued that this caches results and normal users will mostly run things from the App Store and seldom notice any delays, it is something that ought to be surfaced properly for developers and power users alike.

It’s perfectly understandable that iTerm users get bitten by this, but why isn’t the system terminal added to the Developer Tools pane in System Preferences, Security, Privacy automatically (and consistently)?

If I ever upgrade to Catalina, I expect to get bitten by this during the very first day…

mkalus shared this story from Price Tags.

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Here are some of the first images of our first Slow Streets. (Click title for all images.)

Thanks to Anthony Floyd:

Went on a tour of the Slow Streets this evening. Not all the barricades and signs were in place yet, but we met the crew working their way West, so they might be all in by the end of the evening.

South of Kingsway, on Lakewood and along Ridgeway, they are fillable plastic jersey barriers with the signs attached to one side. They are only at the entrances at major intersections, and at the end of that block away from the intersection. There are few to no barriers between major streets. These barriers are mostly in the middle of the street.

North of Kingsway, along Lakewood and Wall St the barriers are A-Frame construction barriers with the signs. These too are only near major intersections. The placement of these barriers is much more variable. More often than not, they’re on the side of the road (whether placed there or moved there) and could be easily overlooked. In my opinion these are even less effective here.

PT: There are already a few complaints on Twitter that these are not fully closed-to-vehicle-traffic streets.  That’s why they’re not called ‘closed streets’ – a bad nomenclature, in any event, since even those would still allow for bikes and walkers.  A fully ‘closed’ network of streets would have required months of consultation in this city, not to mention challenging logistics. Wasn’t going to happen.

We already have traffic-calmed streets, bikeways and greenways – but these temporary responses will, if successful, build community support for more interventions in the future.  Once residents get comfortable walking, running, walking dogs and playing in their streets, they’ll never see them the same again.

The “slow” in these street is really directed to vehicle drivers.  Even as they are acknowledged as legitimate users of the street, drivers too will look at people unsurrounded by a ton or so of metal as legitimate users who rightfully share their right-of-way.

Nor are these ‘Flow Streets’ – the name I’ve used for Beach Avenue, where the replacement of two full traffic lanes by three to four bike lanes allows for passing and sorting by cyclists of all kinds, from MAMILs in lyrca pelotons to seniors on e-bikes to families with kids trying out their first wheels.  They all can find their own speeds and maintain their ‘flows,’ without the complication of accommodating vehicles.  But for many, there’s no difference in speed between them and cars on the other side of the plastic cones.  That’s why these are not slow streets.

We still have the summer ahead of us – and more Slow Streets to come, creating a network across the city.  There’s lots to learn.  Some will be successful, others not so much. Modifications and tweaks will be in order.  Neighbourhoods will discover new ways of sharing and experimenting with all this delightful open space, close to home, gathering in small groups, with appropriate distancing.  Bonnie Henry will be pleased.

And Price Tags will post the pics.

 

A new role that will pop up soon will be “Head of remote ops.” We will have entire dept dedicated towards supporting remote operations.

Beautiful to watch this unfold. I guess we will stop explaining to people what it means to work “remotely.”

We will have bespoke companies whose sole job will be helping companies navigate different countries regulations; compensation, taxes, health benefits and even pension funds.

Companies with large enough workforce in different cities will figure out how to plan hangouts and “TGIFs.”

We can’t entirely do away with the human connection. So may be once every quarter, there will be budget for staff of company X living in city Y to hangout together.

This turn of event may or may not bring about significant changes in co-working spaces, instead I see more people going to cafés to get work done.

Co-working spaces will need to spice up their offers to make things enticing; after 6PM jam sessions, yoga, etc. Hello WeWork.

More homes will now be forced to carve out dedicated workspace/home office.

Therapists will be needed more than ever before to help people cope with burnouts and all.

Companies may have to employ them full time.

“How we work remotely” will now be a standard in company’s handbook and onboarding sessions.

Company directories will now be standard. Sort of who to talk to when you need X.

We may end up with regional remote ops coordinators too.

Cities will start investing in infrastructure to make remote work and living there conducive.

This will also have ripple effects on the economy of these cities. I will move to city X if it’s great and has good infrastructure.

The second phase of talent war is about to begin.

This is The New York Times front page for Sunday, May 24, 2020.

Tags: coronavirus, front page, New York Times

DaveO, pro hermit @uncleweed
We’re waiting for ya Ichiro Stanley Olson... i mean dont rush out but, ya know just looking forward to kissing yer… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

raincoaster @raincoaster
@SnarkySteff And to make it worse, nobody wants to get close to Torontonians in the first place. Ottawans were dis… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Travel writer Wayne Bernhardson on the challenges of being a travel guide writer during the pandemic:

Even if the travel and tourism sector re-opens, there’s another obstacle for me (and many other US citizens). Everybody knows, of course, about the notorious vanity wall under construction at the Mexican border, but now the current White House occupant’s minions are taking it to another level entirely. My US passport expires in early September, and I recently learned that the State Department is not processing either new or renewal applications so that, even if Argentina and Chile open up for tourism, it’s uncertain (at best) when we’ll be able to return.

mkalus shared this story .

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mkalus shared this story from Vancouver Real Estate Anecdote Archive.

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According to CMHC estimates, the ratio of household debt to GDP in Canada could reach 130 per cent in the third quarter of this year, a sharp increase from around 99 per cent before the pandemic. Debt as a share of disposable income, meanwhile, could also rise precipitously to 230 per cent in the third quarter, up from 176 per cent.

Siddall said those ratios are well over a critical 80 per cent threshold, above which “the Bank for International Settlements has demonstrated that national debt intensifies the drag on GDP growth.” Such high debts risk future economic growth by “effectively converting future consumption into debt service payments,” he said, at a time when households and governments are increasingly leveraged.

Adding to real estate concerns amid COVID-19, the agency also sees housing prices plummeting in the next calendar year.

“The resulting combination of higher mortgage debt, declining housing prices and increased unemployment is cause for concern for Canada’s longer term financial stability,” Siddall said.

The CMHC sees housing prices declining between nine and 18 per cent over the next 12 months. Those estimates are loosely in line with an earlier projection by DBRS Morningstar, a credit rating agency, says which says housing prices could fall between 10 and 15 per cent by 2022.

By way of comparison, the owner of a $300,000 home at a five per cent down payment could lose around $45,000 if housing prices fell by 10 per cent, Siddall said.

He said the agency is “debating whether we should change our underwriting policies” as a result of the pandemic, potentially restricting the future lending environment as debt levels soar.

“Our support for home ownership cannot be unlimited,” he said. “It’s like blood pressure, you can have too much, [but] you need some.”

– excerpt from ‘Bloody terrifying’: COVID-19 will raise household debt levels and ‘drag on GDP growth,’ CMHC warns’, Jesse Snyder, 19 May 2020, National Post

Remarkably straight talk from the organization that has played such a large part in extending rope to participants over the last 20 years. And we’d guess that ‘18%’ is just a best guess estimate of the first step. As we’ve postulated over the years, when the bubble bursts, few are going to step in and overextend themselves to go into debt to buy assets that are falling in value yet still very overpriced by every metric. The Vancouver market has been predicated on prices that only go up, and the result has been prices that are about three times those determined by fundamental utility value. Once the drops start, we see no way of this all bottoming at 18%-off. In Vancouver, the direct and indirect economic effects of a drop of 18% in RE would alone almost definitely guarantee a larger drop.
– vreaa

Many people set out to do bike commuting - and give up because it just does not work out. That's not because they can't do it - it's just because they make some beginner mistakes. Here are the top 7 most common mistakes that people make when they try to become bike commuters.

The post The 7 Biggest Mistakes People Make When They Try to Start Bike Commuting appeared first on Average Joe Cyclist.

Just tap on one and hold in front of the camera. No need to get audio to signal your intent. My favorite is ELMO: Enough, Let's Move On.

More >

Coming from a long line of well-informed rule followers, I was dutifully waiting my turn in the pasta aisle at Sobeys while the person in front of me did their spaghetti shopping. After two or three minutes they turned to me and said “Oh, you’re doing that social distancing thing?” and rolled on.

Jerry Seinfeld:

"What am I really sick of?" is where innovation begins.

Steve Wozniak:

For a lot of entrepreneurs, they see something and they say, "I have to have this," and that will start them building their own.

Morgan Housel:

Necessity is the mother of invention, so our willingness to solve problems is about to surge.

A lot of people are facing a lot of different stresses right now, with the prospect that many of those stresses will continue on into the foreseeable future. For instance, I know a lot of CS faculty who are looking at online instruction and remote learning much carefully now that they may be doing it again in the fall. Many of us have some things to learn, and some real problems need to be solved.

"What am I really sick of?" can turn the dial up on our willingness to solve problems that have been lingering in the background for a while. Let's hope that some good can come from the disruption.

mkalus shared this story from ByDonkeys on Twitter.

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I rode to Greenwich today. I wanted to distance myself from some of my Southern people. You may recall I tried to go there a few weeks back but was stymied by the closed Greenwich Foot Tunnel. I went via London Bridge instead and it worked a treat and was probably about the same distance. But, here's the thing: you might really enjoy riding that far, and seeing your distant friends carefully,

 

It’s taken a few months, but now we have some action.  This just out from the City of Vancouver – slowstreets@vancouver.ca

On May 22, we’ll start installing 12 km of Slow Streets signs and barriers. Other routes across the city will be added in the coming weeks.

Slow Streets – routes for walking, cycling, and rolling that make it easier to exercise and access businesses in your local neighbourhood.

• Motor vehicle access is limited to local traffic only.
• People walking may pass each other using the roadway.
• Drive slowly and watch for people on the road.
• On-street parking, access for emergency vehicles, and waste/recycling collection is maintained.

Have your say

In a few weeks, we’ll be asking the public for ideas and feedback on how to make these routes more comfortable for walking, cycling, and rolling. Using input from residents and businesses, we’ll make adjustments and improvements at key locations.

Questions? Email us at slowstreets@vancouver.ca

It appears that this choice of route – entirely through the east side and a diversity of neighbourhoods – was seen through an equity lens.  That’s council-speak to make sure the voices of their support are heard.

This Slow Street route builds on the already-established leg-and-wheel networks – notably 37th Avenue, the Ridgeway Greenway.  Not only did 37th Avenue get priority when greenways were first funded in the 1990s, it was given extra special treatment with a lot of small interventions – traffic calming, parklets, art, landscaping – with funding that might otherwise have gone to an extension of greenways through the West Side.  But some residents there were fearful of the idea – something bringing outsiders through their neighbourhood – and didn’t really see a need.  Most of their streets were already lush and green.

The City happily spent the money east of Granville.

But after the Beach Flow Way was done in the West End, the next one this time had to be east of Granville too.