@david_megginson@mstdn.ca
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

david_megginson

@david_megginson@mstdn.ca

#Tea drinker. Urban dweller. #Gardener. Classical guitarist. #Standards wonk. Grounded pilot. Pantheist. Jane Jacobs fanboy. #Language nerd. 25-year #vegetarian. 30-year #Linux user. #Disabled. Open-* and humanitarian #aid person. Former medieval philologist (Ph.D, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, 1993). Living on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory.

Header picture: Large reddish-orange letters spelling "Hintonburg", some lying flat on the sidewalk for use as benches.

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david_megginson, to random
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

As someone else's experience has just reminded me, becoming a manager isn't a promotion; it's a job change.

It's a broken workplace that forces a talented engineer (or aid worker, or writer, or whatever) to become a mediocre manager just to keep their career from stalling.

C.f. the Peter Principle

david_megginson, to gardening
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

And we're off! Gardening season 2024 has begun.

Row 1 (a): King of the North Peppers (heirloom) — they produced well last year.

Row 1 (b): California Wonder Peppers (organic) — hedge my bets.

Row 2 (a): Sweetie Cherry Tomatoes (organic).

Row 2( b): Generic McKenzie cherry tomato mix — red, orange, and yellow.

This year I know to plant only a few of the hardiest seedlings in May, with lots of space around them for light and air, and discard all the rest.

david_megginson, to Ottawa
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

It's March and I'm getting ready to start my first seedlings in a couple of weeks (Ottawa, hardiness zone 5a). I pulled my seedling stand out of the garage, cleaned it off, and clamped on the grow lights I got for Christmas.

This will be year 2 starting from seed, so I will learn from all the mistakes I made in year 1 and everything will turn out perfectly. right? … Right? … RIGHT? … (um, is this thing on? 😕 )

david_megginson, to languagelearning
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

Old Norse "vík" meant cove or inlet (c.f. placenames like "Narvik" and "Reykjavik").

Scandinavian pirates who did hit-and-run raids from the water in the early Middle Ages were sometimes called "Víkingar" (cove people).

It's a modern English affectation to apply the "Viking" label to all early-Medieval Scandinavians (influenced by 19th-century German romaniticism??).

The Anglo-Saxons rarely used the term, preferring "Dene" (Danes) or "Norðmenn" (Northerners) for all Scandinavians.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

(The rarely-attested Old English word for the northern pirates, "wicingas", doesn't survive into Modern English, so we've reborrowed the Scandinavian cognate.)

david_megginson, to Sliderules
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

Airplane altimeters over-read in colder-than-normal temperatures. If you were on a plane before the digital age and it had to clear a ridge, this is how the flight crew decided whether they were actually high enough to make it.

You don't need to have an E6B analogue flight computer (though it's fun); just hit any key to see the complex steps — one really hoped the navigator hadn't skipped their morning tea or coffee. 🙂

https://e6b.org/calc.html#true_altitude

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

And yes, it was dangerous when propeller planes were already flying close to their service ceilings and margins were slim. The Allies lost nearly 600 cargo planes and over 1,600 crew supplying the Chinese army from India during (to the Himalayas. not enemy fire).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hump

jcriecke, to cycling
@jcriecke@urbanists.social avatar

Anyone who threatens to run over bicyclists at a meeting about bike lanes should be immediately removed and barred from future meetings. We have to stop normalizing threats.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@jcriecke IANAL, but threatening a specific act of violence counts as assault under many criminal codes (indictable offense in Canada; felony in the U.S.), so the consequence should more than just being barred from a meeting.

NuanceRhymesWithOrange, to photography
@NuanceRhymesWithOrange@mstdn.social avatar

A row of lampposts in the heart of Barrhaven. Hmm, heart sounds too passionate. Maybe the kidney of Barrhaven?

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@NuanceRhymesWithOrange Wide sidewalks and lots of shops, but no humans visible. Are they filming a post-apocalyptic movie where alien robot cars have killed all the humans and taken over the earth?

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@NuanceRhymesWithOrange I haven't been there. Is it like Kanata Centrum or Lansdowne (creepy, fake-high-street Midwich Cuckoos vibe), or more of a real shopping street?

david_megginson, to analog
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

Among my hobbies, probably the weirdest one is circular slide rules. I was introduced to them 22 years ago when I started flying lessons, and have since branched out from the E6B to non-aviation circular rules. I like them because

  1. they're analogue, and
  2. they remind us of the correct level of precision.

Additionally, they make great fidget toys.

(See also my little website https://e6b.org/ )

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@nyrath The DC-3 (designed exclusively using ) has never crashed due to a design defect, according to people I talked to at McDonnell-Douglas in the late 1990s. You can't say the same for Boeing's latest aircraft. I suspect there are two reasons for that:

  1. GIGO: People trust the output of computers and skip common-sense sanity checks.
  2. The DC-3 was overbuilt (to be on the safe side), while modern CAD allows companies to cut things closer to the margins for extra $$$.

david_megginson, to comics
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

XKCD: stop being so accurate about how strategists and senior managers think. It's creeping me out.

https://xkcd.com/2899/

enobacon, (edited ) to ebikes
@enobacon@urbanists.social avatar

In the last five years, caused only 3.8% as many injuries as bathrooms. Wear your bathroom , and shame your friends and family until they stop taking baths

without a helmet.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@enobacon I have no skin in any e-bike safety debate, but my skin crawls when I see nonsense statistics.

Only about 7% of Americans use an e-bike at least once a month (according to YouGov), and they likely use them a lot less often than they use the bathroom. Also, bathroom injuries happen disproportionately to people with disabilities or the elderly, because it can be wet and slippery, have sharp corners and edges, and is often visited during the night when balance isn't at its best).

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@enobacon But they don't flush all that well.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@enobacon But more seriously, as a disabled person myself, I just don't want to see bikes — electric or pedal — at all on pedestrian-only sidewalks or going excessively fast on shared pathways, because the consequences of even a slight collision could be serious for me.

As long as they stay off the sidewalk and keep the speed down (e.g. below 20 km/h) on multiuse paths, then live and let live.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@enobacon I understand. If the sidewalk is empty for dozens of metres in both directions (like some suburban sidewalks), then yes, go ahead and ride on it — I'm not a fan of rules just for the sake of rules.

But if there's anyone else nearby, please get off and walk your bike — even a little wobble could knock someone with thin bones and weak balance over and ruin their life.

It's wrong that drivers are putting cyclists at risk, but it's also wrong for cyclists to put pedestrians at risk.

david_megginson, to random
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

UN head:

What has been unfolding in Gaza for the past 138 days is unparalleled in its intensity, brutality and scope. Tens of thousands … killed, injured or buried under the rubble. Entire neighbourhoods razed to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced, living in the most abject conditions even as winter sets in. Half a million people on the brink of famine. No access to the most basic needs: food, water, health care, latrines.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/21/the-worlds-moral-failure-in-gaza-should-shame-us-all

david_megginson, to mysteries
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

I've been thinking about inherited wealth in golden-age murder (1920s and 30s especially).

They show the folly of the old system that was crumbling, by demonstrating how arbitrary is — it took only a bit of arsenic or a discrete shove down the stairs (rather than "good breeding" or a god-ordained social order) to change a "nobody" into a rich, respectable pillar of society.

The murderer gets caught for the sake of the plot, but they also mention that many don't.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

It will always blow my mind that Fundies use the Bible to explain why women should be submissive uneducated stay at home baby machines, while the Bible's own description of the "Perfect" woman is a Land owning female boss who is praised by her husband and her city for her contributions.

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@RickiTarr Just so. The is a threat to many established churches; that's why the Catholic church used to burn people at the stake for translating it into languages laypeople could understand, and why fundamentalist pastors today still keep a tight rein on how their flocks are allowed to interpret it.

We wouldn't want anyone to take Rabbi Jesus' objections to public prayer and religious elites, or his support for radical social justice TOO literally, now, would we? 😕

david_megginson, to music
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

I no longer attend any church, but I still like to listen to organ music on Sunday mornings. Into my teens, I attended an old church with good acoustics and a big pipe organ. The Queen's University Dean of Music was the organist. That's where I learned my love of baroque music.

I'm fortunate that the church was already socially-progessive then, and now has flown the rainbow flag for decades to show that it welcomes everyone because of who they are (not despite it).

elduvelle, to privacy
@elduvelle@neuromatch.social avatar

Antivirus has been collecting and selling their users’ browsing information 😱😱😱

I need to change my antivirus ASAP!! What do you all recommend?!

From: @jon
https://social.vivaldi.net/@jon/111985903331842810

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@elduvelle @jon Much "anti-virus" software is itself a virus, even if it's not as malicious as in this case.

The best protection applies to all platforms — use websites instead of installing apps whenever possible, apply the latest security updates, sandbox apps when you can, install software only from trusted sources, uninstall software you don't use, etc etc.

…/more

david_megginson,
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

@elduvelle

In Windows, you can use the free "Windows Security" (formerly the "Windows Defender" app); it does a good job without the performance hit you get from the $$$ products, and without introducing new spyware onto your machine (Microsoft already has access, for better or worse).

…/more

david_megginson, to flightsim
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

More from the open-source #FlightGear flight simulator: a TCA DC-3 approaching the Northumberland Strait, enroute from Moncton, NB (CYQM) to Charlottetown, PE (CYYG).

#flightSim #FOSS #aviation

david_megginson, to random
@david_megginson@mstdn.ca avatar

There are tools for countering state-sponsored military aggression and deliberate targeting of non-combatants. As far as you are able

  1. Boycott products from the aggressor countries.
  2. Divest from companies who are based there or provide weapon- or surveillance-systems.
  3. Speak up to your political representatives so that they know their constituents care.
  4. Donate to organisations helping the victims, like Mercy Corps or UNRWA.
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