Microposts

Kids are vaccinated!

Michael Geist is doing excellent work on Bill C-10:

There are at least three points emphasizing. First, no other country in the world uses broadcast regulation in this way, making Canada a true global outlier. Second, there is no evidence of a discoverability problem for user generated content. Third, the issue of excluding YouTube from the scope of the bill is open to considerable debate and was not even raised by CIMA in its written submission to the committee.

Debating Bill C-10 at the Canadian Heritage Committee, Part One: My Opening Statement

Great weather for a short run ๐Ÿƒโ€โ™‚๏ธ

An interesting observation from my coach today:

We must stop searching for progress through punishment

Why modern Buddhists should take reincarnation seriously | Aeon Essays:

Thinking about reincarnation today is, first of all, a reminder of the complexity of Buddhism, and the fact that individual practices canโ€™t be neatly separated from broader institutional histories. Any change in our personal lives is inseparable from change in the world around us. Second, reincarnation offers a way of thinking about the present as connected to the deep past and to any potential futures as well. We neednโ€™t think of the specifics of the reincarnation doctrine to realise that weโ€™re all the inheritors of a past that we didnโ€™t create and the bequeathers of a future we wonโ€™t live to see. Third, this temporal relation is also an ethical one, because it suggests that weโ€™re the products of other lives and the creators of other futures, and thus share a global and temporal interdependence. And fourth, it follows that part of our task as humans is to be aware of what we might accidentally replicate from our past and thus unknowingly recreate in the future.

Assuming this is true, great news that Ontario’s summer camps for kids will be allowed to open again. My kids really need this (their parents would benefit too!)

I’ve found my new power up song ๐Ÿ”ฅ ๐Ÿƒโ€โ™‚๏ธ ๐ŸŽต

Fleeting confirmation that spring weather has arrived

Clever:

Scientific efforts to shed light on the prehistory of clothes have received an unexpected boost from another line of research, the study of clothing lice, or body lice. These blood-sucking insects make their home mainly on clothes and they evolved from head lice when people began to use clothes on a regular basis. Research teams in Germany and the United States analysed the genomes of head and clothing lice to estimate when the clothing parasites split from the head ones.

How clothing and climate change kickstarted agriculture | Aeon Essays

Currently reading: Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson ๐Ÿ“š

First vaccine dose administered! A very efficient process.

An excellent For All Mankind season finale. Iโ€™m looking forward to season 3 and further divergence from our timeline

Well S2E9 of For All Mankind certainly ended on a cliff hanger! How are they going to wrap all this up in just one last episode? ๐Ÿ“บ ๐Ÿš€

Math Without Numbers by Milo Beckman takes a conversational approach to math, saying as much about how mathematicians think as it does about the math. Removing numbers helps focus on the concepts and the delightful illustrations are just whimsical enough to match the prose๐Ÿ“š

There are some great observations about data in Why the Pandemic Experts Failed that apply in any context.

I wonโ€™t spoil the list, other than to say that I strongly agree with the first one: All data are created; data never simply exist. We rarely put enough thought or effort into planning how data will be generated, and then have to make up for this in the modelling phase.

Our models are always dependent on the quality of data we put into them. And, yet, we often spend much more time refining and testing our models than we do with our input data and the production process that generates them.

Life Is About What We Can Do For Each Other - RyanHoliday.net

All of this is a way of dodging the reality of the choice in front of us: Can you subjugate your own interestsโ€”if only temporarilyโ€”for the sake of someone else? Countless someone elseโ€™s. Most of whom you will never know or even meet. Can you serve them? Can you sacrifice for any of them? Can you hear what theyโ€™re saying? Can you care?ย 

Iโ€™m looking forward to starting Math Without Numbers by Milo Beckman ๐Ÿ“š

Happy Easter from Lucy

Currently reading: Limitless by Jim Kwik ๐Ÿ“š

I’ve reached the F barre chord stage of my guitar lessons. A tough spot! ๐ŸŽธ

Thanks @jean! Stickers arrived

Currently reading: Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday ๐Ÿ“š

Humble Pi by Matt Parker is a very entertaining book about math errors. His irreverent personality really comes through and the stories make the important point about how essential math is to our everyday lives. ๐Ÿ“š

Cookies!

Lucy with her dog-walking friends

Currently reading: Humble Pi by Matt Parker ๐Ÿ“š

I’ve enjoyed listening to one of David Whyte’s poems each night before bed in the Waking Up Contemplative Action track. A good way to clear out my head

The Light of All That Falls by James Islington is a great end to The Licanius Trilogy. I was in the mood for an immersive fantasy series and these delivered, each book weighing in at close to a thousand pages. Interesting mix of fantasy, politics, time travel & free will ๐Ÿ“š

Lucy gave up before we even started our One Academy Everest class

Wow, S2E3 of For All Mankind has a really powerful scene about parenthood. Very well done