Heard on CBC this morning that one of many names floated for a possible Halifax CFL expansion team is the Halifax Explosion.

Brilliant? Inappropriate? I think both?

Speaking of the victims of residential schools in Newfoundland & Labrador, The Prime Minister of Canada said:

“Many were sorely neglected and not properly fed, clothed, or housed. Others suffered physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. All were deprived of the love and care of their families, of their parents, and of their communities. These are the hard truths that are part of Canada’s history.“

Lest it be seen as a partisan issue, the previous Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said in 2008:

“Two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, “to kill the Indian in the child.” Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country.”

It may just be words, but it is important that these issues are acknowledged by the highest office in our country.

The greatest feature of the Web may be that it ignores double spaces after a period.

In the extraordinary documentary, The Vietnam War by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick, an ‘Army Advisor’ named James Willbanks says:

“If you can’t count what’s important, you make what you can count important.”

This is true in more than war.

Tech Youtube-guy extraordinaire, MKBDH, pulls off a subtle but clever way to show how video playback works on the new iPhone X screen (relevant portion is around 5:50).

I know I may be suffering from Early Onset Grumpiness, because I agree with this rant about how laptops aren’t as good as they were in the good old days (two years ago).

Perhaps due to my history with Mozilla and Firefox, I’ve been a happy Firefox user since version 0.6 (14 years ago!?). In recent years, the Chrome browser from Google has become the most commonly used browser, especially among web developers.

I’m delighted to see that Mozilla has made great strides in improving Firefox and is winning people over again. The latest version of Firefox, released today, is worth a try. There are also some great nerdy details on how Firefox has improved.

Even if Firefox doesn’t regain the market-share it once had, these efforts push the other browser vendors to improve and generally improve the Web as a platform.

Thanks and congrats to all of the designers, engineers, and other humans who continue to improve Firefox. The update icon looks slick too.

Every time I see a news story about the flu shot (which is available for free on Prince Edward Island this year), there’s always a stock photo close-up of a needle jabbing into an arm.

If you want to encourage people to get the flu shot, don’t use a photo of the one thing people don’t like about the flu shot.

I was able to get the flu shot for free without an appointment (or any wait time) at Shoppers Drug Mart.

Here’s a free invention idea for you (in that I have a stupid idea and will not do anything with it): The Zen Microwave.

The Zen Microwave only has one control: an on/off switch. Once you’ve started it, you have to remember to turn it off or your left-overs will turn into exploding spaghetti-charcoal.

If you want to heat up your lunch, it can go one of two ways:

1. Put your lunch in the microwave and turn it on (remember, there’s no timer)
2. Stand there for two minutes, focused and present
3. Turn the microwave off and enjoy your hot lunch

Or:

1. Put your lunch in the microwave and turn it on
2. Wander around the kitchen, get a glass of water, check in on your online click-farm business on your phone, thumb through the Home Hampers & Hobbits flyer
3. Smell burning and notice that your lunch has been super-heated for 10 minutes

Is it dangerous? Yes – but how else are you ever going to learn?

A few things I’ve been enjoying recently:

The Vietnam War by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick

The Vietnam War is a ten-part, 18-hour documentary from PBS. It’s available to stream for free on the PBS website/app, but only if you live in the US. For those of us fortunate enough not to live in the Greatest Country on Earth™, there are some hoops to jump through to watch it.

The easiest set of hoops I’ve found is to use the free built-in VPN in the Opera web browser. You can easily select the US as your VPN zone and enjoy the web as our freedom-loving friends see it.

The documentary is exhaustive and is propelled by remarkable interviews with participants from Both Sides™ of the war. It will leave you wondering how it could have ever been allowed to happen, and terrified that it will happen again.

How F*cked Up Is Your Management by Jonathan & Melissa Nightingale

Jonathan & Melissa Nightingale have gathered some of their best writing from their excellent blog, The Co-Pour. They discuss and share what they’ve learned about the mechanics and humanity of working with people in a business. It’s short, easy to read, has a profane title, and a fine domain name: hfuiym.com.

Hidden America with Jonah Ray

I came to know Johan Ray though his co-hosting of the Nerdist podcast. He plays the host of a fake travel show, Hidden America with Jonah Ray, which is generally a spoof of low-budget cable travel shows, but occasionally drifts into absurd horror.

Watching it from outside the US is frustrating. It’s a great show – but it’s barely worth jumping through the hoops required. Like The Vietnam War doc, you’ll need the Opera VPN to watch from outside of the US, then you need to create an account on the VRV site, and even then the show is peppered with ads that randomly interrupt playback. As I said, barely worth it – but still worth it.

If you’re not sure you want to jump through all of those hoops, the first episode (Boston) is on YouTube as is a short trailer.