Farewell to Neil Peart. His music has been part of my life from the start. 🥁😢
Microposts
This Strong Songs episode on Stairway to Heaven is a fun listen and insightful analysis of a classic song 🎙
I finished Season 3 of The Leftovers, a fascinating exploration of loss, love, and family. Well worth watching if you like mysterious plots and unresolved narratives. The actors and writing are great and the ending is satisfying. 📺
I really enjoyed this Mindscape podcast episode with Dan Dennett 🎙
The snow wasn’t great, but still nice to get out for a ski this weekend.
Bob Boilen’s Top 20 Albums For 2019 is a good list
Where to start? 📚
We take Boxing Day seriously here as a day of relaxation. So, I’m disappointed to have exceeded my 0 minutes target. The spike around 2 was when I went upstairs for a nap 😴
The Labo VR kit is great fun to build and play
I’m most certainly in the target demographic, so perhaps not surprising that I enjoyed For All Mankind. I like these sorts of alternative histories and space exploration is a fascinating topic. I’m looking forward to whatever comes in season 2. 📺
The Stiehl Assassin by Terry Brooks is okay. Given this is the last series he plans to write, I’m curious to see where he takes the fourth book. Based on the three books so far, the plot is pretty standard for Shannara series. I’d hoped for something more dramatic.
After the original series, I think the Genesis of Shannara series is the most inventive one. 📚
Great fun with my siblings last night on our annual Christmas dinner adventure. Storm Crow Manor was very entertaining with nerd-themed drinks.
I declared podcasts bankruptcy and recovered with a better curated subscription list 🎧👍
A mind bending discussion on the Making Sense podcast: what we perceive as reality is only a “user interface wrapper” that natural selection has created to enhance our fitness. It has no necessary mapping to the truth of reality.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is an imaginative literary romance novel wrapped in a time travel espionage plot. I really enjoyed it, though it was not at all like my usual sci-fi reading 📚
Gamer
I’ve just bumped up my monthly support of CANADALAND to the next tier. Plenty of great content that I’m happy to pay for.
Great fun at the Axe Pancreatic Cancer fundraiser last night! Thanks to everyone that joined us to raise money to support two promising clinical trials.
A cool visualization and exploration of the network of scientific papers
As a daily AeroPress user, I enjoyed watching this documentary on its origin and culture
I finally got my flu shot and hope you did too 😷🦠
A great conversation between Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins on the Making Sense podcast. Nice to hear Dawkins talking about evolution again.
Several catchy songs on Joseph Arthur’s new album Come Back World
Recursion by Blake Crouch is an entertaining time-travel, multiverse story. Distinct from his previous Dark Matter novel, but with the right kinds of echos 📚
With an agent based model you can explore interesting scenarios. Our latest post models the 🇨🇦 election with another Liberal scandal, new Conservatives climate change policy, or proportional representation. The results are not obvious, showing benefits of non-linear modelling.
At my son’s soccer game, but I’m not that familiar with the game. Anyone know what position he’s playing in this picture?
Axe Pancreatic Cancer is back! Join us to throw axes, drink beer and wine, and raise money for pancreatic cancer research. Early bird tickets are sold out. So, don’t wait!
We’ve been using our agent-based model to analyze the upcoming Federal election here in Canada. Now that we’ve generated our predictions, we’re going to explore how best to explain the outcomes. 🗳🇨🇦
My “Best Dad” mug has been recalled. Apparently it may break when filled with hot liquid, which is exactly its function. Hopefully this isn’t some metaphor for my parenting
Stranger Things season 3 is fun with 80s nostalgia and familiar characters. Not as delightfully creepy as season 1 though.