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LiveJournal for ironphoenix.
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| Thursday, January 28th, 2021 |
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I had an appointment with my optometrist recently. A little while back, someone drove into their front window, and things aren't repaired fully yet. The instructions for coming to the appointment: You'll get to a boarded-up storefront. Go around to the back. At exactly 10:30, come to the back door and knock. Wear a mask, and come alone. Me: 🤔 Sounds legit! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/277794.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Saturday, May 9th, 2020 |
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I miss people, I miss activities. I'm glad I have my partners in person, at least... otherwise, sanity would be not-great. As it is, we're making the most of the extra time together. I'm working from home, which is... ok, better than not working, but not my favorite way to be. I considered going back to playing keyboards during The Isolation, but I realized that I would drop it once aikido and gaming meetups got going again, so it's hart to justify the expense. A friend mentioned the Roli controllers, which look like a lot of fun to me. Someday, maybe... hopefully not too soon if it's because I can no longer do aikido! I have managed to shift a little bit of my gaming online: we've played a bit of 1830 via Board18, and my biweekly RPG has moved online reasonably effectively, just as we were starting a new arc. It's not the same, but it's something. For walks, we've been avoiding parks during the worst of the isolation policing, and going mostly to outlying crown lands and the like. It's still a big country out there, with a lot of nowhere in particular. Hopefully, y'all are staying healthy and somewhat sane! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/277705.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Wednesday, March 4th, 2020 |
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Busy, but wanted to get this out there. I didn't even post my most recent reflection here, but I hope to remedy that soon. Work news: I was promoted to team lead in January, and folks here seem to like what I do and how I do it, which is a step up over the Powers That Be at my old place. Family news: my father passed away on Sunday morning, succumbing after a long decline to dementia; the funeral is on Friday. Mixed, fairly intense emotions, as you can imagine. This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/277419.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Tuesday, October 9th, 2018 |
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25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B Text: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6, 8; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37. ( Content notice: reference to child abuse.Collapse ) This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/275757.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Wednesday, June 6th, 2018 |
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Near where I work, there are ads on lawn signs for various summer camps, including things like "Detective Camp," "Lego Camp," "Science Camp," and "Back to School Camp." Back to School Camp? Really? I guess this is what parents threaten their kids with if they don't get good grades. Kind of like Krampus for summer vacation! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/274212.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Sunday, June 3rd, 2018 |
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We're getting a new car soon... the old Mazda 3 is near on 310,000 km, so it's about time. So, we're selling it to a guy for not-a-huge-amount-of-money, but still more than the trade-in value, and buying a new Mazda 3. This will probably be our last gasoline-powered car, as I read the technology curve! This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/274144.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Monday, May 14th, 2018 |
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The Ascension of the Lord, Year B Text: Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 4:1-13, Mark 16:15-20. ( Driving out demons and picking up snakes...Collapse ) This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/273782.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Thursday, February 22nd, 2018 |
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 This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/273302.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Thursday, January 11th, 2018 |
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"Child," said Aslan, "did I not explain to you once before that no one is ever told what would have happened?" --C.S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawntreader Apparently, not always so. The Meltdown and Spectre attacks are interesting and clever exploits of speculative execution, a trick we are using to execute programs more quickly. An internet-connected device isn't like a house: it has to be a fortress, because it is much harder to prosecute attackers, due to the relatively high anonymity and jurisdiction-crossing freedom of online attacks. This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/272399.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Saturday, December 30th, 2017 |
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We went down to Virginia to visit On the way back, though, we ran into a traffic jam along I-95 around Stafford VA. A couple of cop cars went by on the shoulders, so we figured there would be a delay because of an accident, par for the course, no biggie. A few more cop cars went by, which was a bit weird, but you know, maybe just an overreaction or something. Then we drove past an accident where it looked like a simple rear-ending, pulled off on the left, with a couple of police cars, and things opened up for a bit, although I suspected that that was a secondary accident caused by an inattentive driver. Sure enough, traffic jammed up again, and yet more police zoomed by, driving down the paved shoulders at speed with sirens going. A helicopter hovered in the sky over the highway ahead, and stayed there. Traffic came to a standstill. Police cars just kept coming. A couple of fire vehicles and one ambulance went by. Still more police, including an investigation unit truck. We were completely stopped for about an hour and a half. Cars started turning back and driving back down the shoulders. Eventually, a state trooper came and told us to do the same, and then we were directed to cross over to the other side and redirected down a country highway (US-1, the Jefferson Davis Highway). The country highway was crawling, unable to cope with the huge volume of traffic. We stopped for lunch and gas after another hour and a half, and heard that not just an accident, but a shooting was involved in whatever incident was delaying us. After lunch, I asked a trooper directing traffic, and he said that the highway was reopened, so we escaped the rest of the detour crawling down US-1. If he hadn't said that, we might well have turned back, because the detour looked like hours more. We went back to the Interstate, which itself took about twenty minutes, and once there, waited about fifteen minutes more for traffic to start flowing again. A little ways down the road, we drove by the investigations unit truck and a few police cars, and there was spill absorbent scattered across the highway. We only found out the rest of the story the next morning, because by the time we got back to Ottawa, it was about 4 a.m., about four and a half hours after our expected arrival time. Googling the news, it looks like a man shot his wife and then led the police on a chase onto I-95, in the course of which he tried to shoot at police. The minor accident we passed first seems to have been a result of one such attempt, where the officer ducked just in time: the bullet was retrieved from the driver's headrest. Eventually, the fugitive hit a guardrail and rolled his SUV, and shot himself. He was taken to hospital by helicopter, but died there. The police handled the whole thing very well, as best I can tell. No police fired weapons, despite the fact that this person was shooting at them. Only the man's wife and he were killed or seriously injured, and they even tried everything they could to save him. Police don't always live up to their mission--none of us do--but their handling of this incident was a pretty good example of how they can maintain lawfulness even under extreme circumstances. This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/272374.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Friday, November 10th, 2017 |
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I concocted a cocktail last night which tastes remarkably like Rockets candy; this was unexpected, but not a bad thing. Here's the recipe... 5 parts Beefeater 24 gin 4 parts Southern Comfort 1 part Galliano several drops DSB Bitters Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/271329.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Sunday, November 5th, 2017 |
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Physio for my arm seems to be working well; the nerve test is this Friday, and hopefully it will show that things are okay, so I have hopes of going back to aikido classes next week. My new boss has started, and I am gradually handing over the reins of various management-y things. We get along well; I hope that she will steer a safe path through the political challenges of being the hardware manager in an increasingly software-oriented group. Despite the often wet weather, This entry was originally posted at https://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/270848.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Friday, September 29th, 2017 |
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I've been off the mats, away from martial arts, for a month, due to what we're pretty sure is a pinched nerve in my arm. It's not doing great things for my sanity to be away from aikido in particular, but at least the weather has been good enough for me to spend some time outdoors. Physiotherapy is in progress, and sometime next month I should get a nerve conduction test; hopefully, I will be free to go back to practice before too long. This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/270321.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Monday, August 21st, 2017 |
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Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A Text: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15:21-28. ( In which Ironphoenix wanders through the Gospels a lot...Collapse ) This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/269440.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Thursday, July 13th, 2017 |
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A recent study demonstrates that having a smartphone within one's sphere of awareness is distracting, reducing one's ability to concentrate effectively. From the Discussion section of Experiment 1 (p. 146):[T]hese results suggest that the mere presence of one’s smartphone may reduce available cognitive capacity and impair cognitive functioning, even when consumers are successful at remaining focused on the task at hand.It seems that it is best to leave the phone out of sight, and preferably even in another room, when doing anything which requires intensive thinking. This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/268646.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Wednesday, June 28th, 2017 |
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Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A Text: Jeremiah 20:10-13, Romans 5:12-15, Matthew 10:26-33. ( Read more...Collapse ) This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/268077.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Tuesday, June 6th, 2017 |
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After a hiatus of a few weeks, I'm back to my martial arts practices. The break was enjoyable in some ways, but it's good to see everyone and catch up, to move that way again, and to experience (and contribute to) the energizing effects of the space and practice. This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/267938.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Thursday, May 4th, 2017 |
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Google Docs shares may not be what they seem; exercise caution, and if you have gotten caught, revoke permissions to the fake app and change your password ASAP. Telegraph article Wired article This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/267235.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Saturday, April 15th, 2017 |
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There is a unicode hack which can make a link look like a trusted site while actually sending you to a phishing site in Chrome or FireFox. Actions to fix this are described in the article. This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/266336.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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| Tuesday, April 11th, 2017 |
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Since Danier has closed all but 4 stores, where does one go to get a good leather jacket in Ottawa? Recommendations? This entry was originally posted at http://ironphoenix.dreamwidth.org/265970.html. Please comment there using OpenID. |
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LiveJournal for ironphoenix.
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okay.