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Bill 212 posted on 20 Nov 2024
So in a fit of pettiness, the Government of Ontario is set to wrap up bike-lanes in a 50-foot-ball of red tape to prevent their construction. I asked on Bluesky what was the best way to complain - if there was a petition I should sign or something. Craig Burley recommended I send a fax of all things. It's got a good chance of being physical media in their space, and won't just be in a slushpile of emails they ignore, or forgettable names on a petition. So I wrote up the letters for the Premier and the Minister of Transportation at lunch on Tuesday and faxed them from my local UPS store. Also emailed them for good measure.
They're not my best writing but I was kind of in a rush.
The bodies of the letters are attached below.
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Barton Bike Lanes Letter posted on 28 Apr 2024
So the other day I sent in an e-mail to the cycling office at the City of Hamilton (as well as the relevant councilors) to request a cycling accommodation in my area. I figured I may as well include the text of the letter here as well.
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Using the BlueSky API to change your Handle to your Domain Name posted on 13 Dec 2023
Personally in the post-Muskening twitter world, I'm pulling for Mastodon, but Bluesky is a somewhat interesting platform too. One feature of Bluesky that stands out is that you can set your name to be based on a domain-name you own. I own Pxtl.ca, so I thought I'd take a crack at leveraging that feature.
What follows is a guide on how to do this in Powershell, which is a programming language you already have installed if you use Windows.
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Github CI posted on 17 Nov 2023
Well, it took longer than I would've liked but I got Github CI working with this blog! Finally learned how to use Github workflows.
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Kenmore Dryer Repair posted on 24 Oct 2023
Once again, everything is made of garbage.
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A Tale of Two Pharmacies posted on 03 Oct 2023
What follows is the story of why I no longer go to my old pharmacy. This is recounted from memory, and some of the details may be inaccurate, but the gist is there.
drops in at local pharmacy
"I'm running out of my meds, can you refill them?"
"Sorry, you have to come closer to refill-day, so come back Saturday."
"Okay, I'll come back then."
...
"Okay, it's Saturday, here to refill my meds."
"... yeah, you're out of refills. We'll have to talk to your doctor."
"... but it's the weekend?"
"Oh, we'll sort it out on Monday."
...
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How I would've designed Overwatch 2 posted on 24 Sep 2023
Okay I’ve been playing the Overwatch 2 anniversary events and considering how many of them are small-group team-vs-team things (Catch the Patchmari, Starwatch). I slept on these the first time through and playing them now I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying them, particularly StarWatch despite some of its dumber ideas (like the AI-controlled Doomfist). This has cemented my previous opinion:
OW2 should’ve been 4v4 (2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer) with some kind of fast-respawning mechanic for the healer, and a standard double-team mode (8v8) either in quickplay or the arcade or something
Then the number of heroes and the popularity of the roles reflects the number in play - there are twice as many DPS heroes to choose from, twice as many DPS players, and twice as many on the team.
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F-Zero 99 posted on 19 Sep 2023
i got a little carried away with this nostalgia game. I loved the old F-Zero and this remake lets you play the classic against 98 other players at once.
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More rigid posted on 12 Sep 2023
If you watch "Well There's Your Problem" podcast (about engineering disasters), Alice has an iconoclastic opinion on things like expansion plates and swivel joints and the general flexibility of good engineering: "No, make it more rigid!" I have taken that to heart with some recent home improvement projects.
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Sick Pupper posted on 31 Aug 2023
So my dog made a mess in his crate overnight. Not a big deal, he eats anything he can get his mouth on, upset tummies are expected. I've parented 3 human babies, messes happen, I know the drill.
For Waffles, there's no good place in the house to wash him, so normally I take him out to the driveway and hold him by the collar and clean him off with the hose. He doesn't love the cold hose-water, but I've seen him frolick in deep puddles in January.
And this time I had something new to help! I fenced in my backyard. But on the other hand, the back yard is all grass. And mud. And last time I was barefoot, this time I was wearing flipflops.