MichaelPorter

MichaelPorter, 1 month ago to random

I’m seeing this graphic making the rounds withouth attribution - many versions have the info at the bottom cut off. The creator is alienyrox2 on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/user/alienyrox2/).

https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/ic1g5o/colors_of_aurora_oc/

#Aurora #CreditYourSources #AltText

MichaelPorter, 1 month ago to Astronomy

Holy, freakin’… words fail me. I’ve never seen the aurora forecast blanket the country like this. Keep your eyes on the skies this weekend!!

More info:
https://spaceweather.com

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-viewline-tonight-and-tomorrow-night-experimental

#Astronomy #StarGazing #Aurora

arstechnica, 2 months ago to random

5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030

"We have a technical debt that stretches back many decades."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/5-25-inch-floppy-disks-expected-to-help-run-san-francisco-trains-until-2030/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

RickiTarr, 4 months ago to random

The hubs was wondering why we stopped getting merit badges now that we are grownups, so he made himself some.

RickiTarr, 5 months ago to random

It's been a minute since I've done a music question, so here goes:

Who is an artist/band that you're annoyed you like?

MichaelPorter, 10 months ago to Geology

Just got a pic from my sister, vacationing in Iceland. This crazy beach.
#Geology #Volcano

futurebird, 5 months ago to random

When you first start teaching math you quickly learn that some things that seemed simple or inconsequential to you are massive stumbling blocks for large numbers of students.

Factoring quadratics is one of these things.

Most people I encountered while majoring in math did not have a "method" to factor quadratics. You look at the thing, see if you can think of some factors, if you can't use the quadratic formula.

Students HATE this "process" it took me a long time to understand why. 1/

MichaelPorter, 6 months ago to politics

One day, I was supervising a chemistry lab with a grade 9 class, and one of my students was walking along with a test-tube rack, fully loaded. One of the test tubes wasn’t quite nestled in properly – it slipped out, and broke on the floor, spilling the contents.

The student expressed his frustration by giving the test tube rack a sharp up and down jerk, which ended up dropping most of the rest of the test tubes on the floor. A small mess was turned into a significantly bigger one, and put the student that much farther behind because he had to re-prepare more solutions.

Unfortunate, and avoidable.

There are a bunch of messes in progress. The climate catastrophe, COVID, war… We are not going to make it better by giving society a shake and electing right-wing politicians. We’re just going to get a bigger mess.

It’s a natural instinct, when things are going to shit, to close in and protect your own. But that just continues the cycle of shit, as we circle the drain. It’s a downward spiral (figuratively, so I can get off the poop metaphors 😄).

Resist that urge. When things are bad, help others. Stop doing the bad things.

Insist that leaders manage the country for everyone, not just a privileged few.

Killing innocents is a bad thing, usually a war crime, no matter who does it. Don't tolerate that shit from anybody. Don't tolerate leaders that tolerate it.

Don't vote for anyone who uses “Take back ______" as a slogan. People interested in taking will take from you, too.

We can have a just society. But we have to work for it, avoid the easy negative reactions, and force those with power and those who would seek power to work for the better, not for themselves.

#OnPoli #CdnPoli #Politics #ClimateJustice #SocialJustice

MichaelPorter, 7 months ago to random

Now that they’ve brought Buffy Saint-Marie down, maybe the CBC can do an investigation on how Pierre Poilievre has passed himself off as a human being for the last 44 years.
#CdnPoli

MichaelPorter, 1 month ago to random

Folks, the alt-text efforts seem to be diminishing. I see a lot of stuff that I'd like to boost, but I've now been properly trained to expect alt-text on pictures (good, descriptive stuff that stands in for the image).

I'm not being pushy, just trying to be considerate of the Mastodon community that has trouble with images. I tend to unfollow accounts that post images without alt text - Not as a punitive thing, but to reduce my temptation to boost them.

MichaelPorter, 3 months ago to random

Holy shit, my 90-year-old father is the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet.
My #TransFem daughter finally picked a name and pronouns recently (I encouraged it about a year ago, but kids don't listen…) and my father phoned her up to welcome her to the family. I was talking to him yesterday and he was mulling over whether he should take her shopping for clothes, or just gift her some money... I'm trying to imagine him offering fashion advice 😄🤣

MichaelPorter, 4 months ago to Ottawa

Levels of snow plow engagement:

1. My job is driving a plow.
2. My job is moving snow.
3. My job is moving snow off this road/driveway.
4. My job is to make movement easier for the people on this road/driveway.
5. My job is to make movement easier for people in general.

Most plow drivers seem to be at #2 or #3. As a pedestrian, and winter cycling enthusiast (to be clear, I’m a supporter, not a participant, yet), I really wish more plow drivers and snow removal contractors were at #5.

Every time I go for a walk, I have to jump over places on the sidewalk where a contractor has carelessly thrown the snow from a driveway (thought - is this a bylaw infraction?). Not to mention all the times a sidewalk has been plowed, only to be filled in again by a street plow.

I’ll be back in the spring, complaining how all the winter crap from the streets gets pushed into bike lanes…

#Autowa #Ottawa #Snow #Awareness

MichaelPorter, 10 months ago to journalism

Hey folks - What’s your go-to for checking for factual info, bias, etc.? I’d like to build a list for fact-checking and reliability. I’m aware of

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
https://www.sourcewatch.org/
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias
https://www.snopes.com

#Media #FixMediaNow #Bias #FactChecking

MichaelPorter, 5 months ago to random

Happy Solstice to everyone who celebrates! Fun facts:

• In the northern hemisphere, it’s the shortest day of the year (everyone knows that). Ottawa will get 8 hours and 43 minutes of daylight today.

• The reason for that is that, due to the Earth’s tilt and our present location in our orbit, the Sun is as far south in the sky as it can get (sciency people know that). This happens at 10:27 PM EST tonight (Friday, December 22, 2023 at 03:27 UTC).

• It’s also the longest solar day of the year, at about 24 hours and 30 seconds (this one might win you some bar bets).

This last one is because at this point in our orbit, we are moving faster than average, so it takes the Earth a little longer to rotate around so that the Sun is in the same place in the sky (the axial tilt has an effect, too).

MichaelPorter, 8 months ago (edited 7 months ago) to ADHD

Okay, #ADHD folks - what symptom suddenly makes sense, now that you understand ADHD better?

I'm not talking about general stuff, like difficulty concentrating, I'm talking about specific phenomena, like having trouble following a conversation at a party.

I always thought I had this problem because my ears are about a foot higher than the people speaking, but now I'm starting to think that the real difficulty is that my brain has trouble turning the volume down on all the other talking in the room.

(I will occasionally repost this, along with whatever new symptom I've thought up... Apologies for the repetition)

#ItAllMakesSenseNow

MichaelPorter, 6 months ago to animals

It’s amazing how, no matter what part of the sleep cycle you’re in, you can still leap out of bed at the sound of the dog retching up bits of a stick he ate yesterday on the carpet.

Good morning, Mastodon! 🌞

#DogsOfMastodon

MichaelPorter, 5 months ago to Canada

Can we normalize letting journalists say “Are you FUCKING kidding me?!” to politicians, CEOs, and “think-tank” leaders?

#ONPoli #CdnPoli #Canada #FraserInstitute

MichaelPorter, 9 months ago to goodomens

You know that guy in #GoodOmens, Newton Pulsifer, who manages to break every computer thing he tries? That’s me today. I’m cursed.

MichaelPorter, 10 months ago to random

Today in #BadDesign - Saw this at my sister’s place in Calgary. The utensil drawer in the kitchen is inside a bigger drawer. To get a utensil, you must first pull out the big drawer, and then reach in and pull out the smaller utensil drawer. The utensil drawer does not come out by default.

Crime: Making a frequent task require more than twice as much effort than it should. Get the thumbscrews.

17th-century thumbscrew, Märkisches Museum Berlin. Text above and below the picture reads “Thumbscrew Award” From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumbscrew_(torture)#/media/File:16XX_Daumenschraube_anagoria.JPG Modified to add the text.

MichaelPorter, 8 months ago to random

Imagine if we made public transit free to access, paid by taxes.

You wouldn’t need fare machines on the buses.
You wouldn’t need ticket machines.
You wouldn’t need Presto cards.
You wouldn’t need child cards.

You could eliminate the entire payment infrastructure.

Bus drivers could just drive, instead of enforcing access rules.

And we wouldn’t get stories like this one.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/sacred-heart-high-school-stittsville-school-bus-1.6987947

MichaelPorter, 1 month ago to random

I heard someone use “get my poop in a group” instead of “get my shit together” the other day. Rhyming improves everything.

MichaelPorter, 1 month ago to Ottawa

"The school bus driver wasn't hurt, police said.”

Such a stupid thing to say.

Aside from the obvious bus>>bike aspect, I am sure that the bus driver was, in fact, harmed by the incident.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/school-bus-struck-child-1.7203463

#Ottawa #OttBike #RoadSafety

thomasfuchs, 4 months ago to random

I need a 1:1 screenshot of the original Mac 128k or 512k showing the famous "hello" in Macpaint, can't find it... anyone knows where I can get it?

futurebird, 2 months ago to random

I was listening to a "Snowball Earth" TV documentary. Not paying much attention. I wish TV documentaries would let scientists who they interview explain more. Like how did you know how old the zircons were? How many places did you find the glacial erratics? Exactly how cold did it get? etc.

Once of the scientists they interview said "It would be harder to live on snowball Earth than the surface of Mars." which seems... not true? Or is it just out of context?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhVFZFm44SQ

grivettcarnac, 1 month ago to climate

This is not cheering for the pay workers get at Chinese EV manufacturing companies or the supply chains etc but the fact that North American car companies have made zero moves to make simple, low cost EVs is pathetic. “Flood the market” blah blah blah. There’s no free market anyway just protectionism, government subsidies and the gatekeeping to keep EVs at $50,000 a piece. Say nothing of the #climatechange song and dance about getting folks into EVs #canada #cdnpoli #ev