Category Archives: Practical Applications of Knowledge

Safety: Only YOU Can Prevent Harm to Yourself

The other day, someone in my extended network posted something about how Toronto just isn’t safe for their kids. This has got me thinking about safety and responsibility. I thought about how when I was a kid, I was instructed on how to behave in public spaces. “Look wrong way, right way, then wrong wayContinue reading “Safety: Only YOU Can Prevent Harm to Yourself”

Just Say No to AR

I’m seeing a lot of people being excited, today, about putting in their orders for the first visionOS devices. Although it would be easy to dismiss this as simple Apple fan dribbling, their excitement is sort of hyperbolic. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” says one person, talking about how now is theContinue reading “Just Say No to AR”

Neat™ Document Database

Problem Every day, I receive physical documents, such as receipts, invoices, account statements, insurance policy updates, and so forth. Each of these documents should be retained for some period of time. Some of these documents should be forwarded to other people (such as, insurance provider or CPA). Physical documents take up space, and unless oneContinue reading “Neat™ Document Database”

Let’s Not Argue About Tools

I just ran across a thread in which a person asserts that GitHub Copilot is a bad tool precisely because it makes it easy to write lots of repetitive code. Their argument amounts to the claim that repetitive, boilerplate code is bad, and if you find yourself writing enough of it that Copilot seems likeContinue reading “Let’s Not Argue About Tools”

Be Careful What You Wish For

So, a lawyer decided to use ChatGPT to “help” write some papers he filed in court, but got in trouble when the included citations were bogus. The naive interpretation of this is that the computer program is broken, and it’s a danger to society and ought to be really regulated, and actually, I don’t disagree.Continue reading “Be Careful What You Wish For”

The Mysterious Fix

And now that we’re home and I’ve got a decently fast and wide connection (compared to the ship)…I’ve spent a bunch of time rebuilding and testing my various layers of Docker images. And guess what? Ubuntu “jammy” with OpenSSL 3 compiles my stuff just fine. *sigh*. Again, the lesson here is that people who writeContinue reading “The Mysterious Fix”