Though I suppose it would be hard to tell otherwise, I think I’m a reasonably intelligent person. Still, there are two areas where I have a kind of learned helplessness and completely fail to grasp basic math:
Whoever decided the clock on the lock screen of Android 12 should be stacked on two lines is bad and they should feel bad.
I’m not sure I can be objective about the company, silverorange, where I have worked for the past 22 years, but it’s a great place to work. We’re doing rewarding work with some world-class doctors that produce medical education tools. In the past few years we’ve built web systems for an art project, a funding application system, an indigenous health group, and are starting on a new project focused on mental health.
We need people to come help us build all of this stuff! Right now, there are positions open for full-stack React Web developers, and a PHP-focused Web developer. A handful of us work here on Prince Edward Island, and most of the rest of the team works remotely from across Canada.
I was talking with some friends-who-are-also-colleagues at work about a subject that, if addressed, would “open up a can of worms.” As the expression indicates, addressing this subject would force us to face a slew of other issues.
In the case, though, being forced to face these other issues felt healthy, necessary, and valuable. I asked my colleagues for a better metaphor for opening a can of good worms.
Thanks to the magical latency of Zoom, they both simultaneously and independently invented the phrase “opening a can of gummy worms.”
The heroes for me this week are all of the preschool and elementary school teachers. They are using every muscle in their face to smile with their eyes to welcome nervous kids to school behind masks.
(don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re wearing masks too)
Of all the new music I’ve heard this year, the song that has stuck with me most is a joke. Like all great joke songs, it’s a great song first.
Bo Burnham’s Netflix musical comedy special, INSIDE, culminates in a song call All Eyes On Me (YouTube, Spotify). There’s a concluding song that comes after it, but this feels like the emotional apex of the special before it wraps up.
All Eyes On Me is three-and-a-half minutes and includes a monologue. It’s best consumed with the visuals, ideally in the context of the full special. The hook has been stuck in my head for weeks.
It’s a joke song, but it’s also kind of a great song.
I would love to see this performed live even thought its power may come from the isolation from which it was created and performed.
I had a few conversations with friends and family recently where we ended up compiling a list of requirements for a place to be called a “cottage”.
If your so-called “cottage” has any of the following, then I’m sorry, you don’t have a cottage. You have a Summer Home.
You may be allowed one of the following, but two or more will disqualify you from the “cottage” designation:
If you have recently chased a bat, bird, or other rodent out of the building, or if you have crawled under the building to jack it up in the spring, you may use the “cottage” designation for one year.
My friend and colleague at silverorange, Stephen DesRoches, has been an accomplished photographer for years. Recently, though, I feel his work has crossed into the could-be-a-default-Apple-wallpaper level of quality. I can imagine this photo as a default wallpaper for macOS Cavendish in 2023 (I’ve since learned this shot is from Bermuda).
If you live on Prince Edward Island (née Epekwitk), you’ve probably seen Stephen’s work on your provincial health card:
You can follow Stephen’s work on Twitter (where he snagged the coveted last-name handle @desroches), on Instagram, on his own site StephenDesRoches.com, or you can get one of his excellent photo books.
Every time you throw an apple core out the window of a moving car on a country road, you hit the ghost of Leslie Nielsen in the face and knock him off a horse.
Here in my home province of PEI (née Epekwitk), we have two primary dairy brands: Perfection/ADL and Purity. They both use similar white plastic bottles in four common milk-fat amounts: 3.25%, 2%, 1%, and Skim (fat-free).
Both dairies use color to differentiate the milk-fat variations. For 3.25% milk, they both use red. For 1% they both use a light blue (sort of, I’d call the ADL variation here teal, but it’s close enough). For 2% and skim milk, though, they colors don’t match, and worse still, blue is used for 2% Perfection, but Skim from Purity.
Our household has a wide variety of milk preferences and needs, and the inconsistency makes it easy to mix up milk types across brands. I ask you, the milk-producers of Prince Edward Island: come together and standardize!
If Big Dairy of PEI wants to pay me to be the milk label czar, I’d use the rainbow to go from heavier to lighter milk variations: RED 3.25%, ORANGE 2%, GREEN 1%, BLUE Skim.
Both brands already get the color right for chocolate milk: brown, like the cows it comes from.