A Swamp of Chemicals

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Yesterday I was thinking about that article I posted about PFOAs being found in rain water … 💦

We really live in a swamp of man-made chemicals, toxic or otherwise. It literally rains all kinds of noxious things out in sky, we breathe them in, we eat it in our food. Most of the chemicals are at very low levels, but they’re everywhere. Now we shouldn’t be afraid, but we should be asking manufacturers to use a little bit more precaution because once the genie is out of the bottle you can’t put him back in right away. I think it’s kind of silly for individuals to take excessive steps to avoid exposure to chemicals, as they’re everywhere and you can’t avoid them, but we should be asking more of industry to do better.

101st Street

My favourite industrial connector (Ceeform).

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For simple rugged power distribution it's hard to beat these rugged Ceeform connectors. They're available in a range of current and voltage ratings with suitable colour coding and keying. They're so common that they literally only cost a few pounds each in quantity for the basic blue/yellow 16A plugs/sockets.

They can be dropped from height, dragged across rubble and left out in arduous weather conditions without too many problems. The fact they're made of resilient plastic with long overlapping lips means that they can be handled relatively safely in wet conditions.

One thing I didn't mention was that the black bodied connector is specifically designed for the entertainment industry where it blends in better than coloured connectors.

I love these connectors. Easy to wire and super-rugged. The most common problems I have with them are broken wires or very rarely a welded contact on higher current connectors. They're cheap and common, so easy to keep spares in stock. Swap or reterminate and they're back in action.

I have seen these in the Empire Plaza and was wondering how they worked and the benefits of them for connecting and disconnecting high voltage, high current loads.

Port of Albany expansion to create jobs, contribute to green initiative, but buried coal ash has local residents concerned for environment

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Spotlight News – DISCOVER GLENMONT: Port of Albany expansion to create jobs, contribute to green initiative, but buried coal ash has local residents concerned for environment

The burned a lot of coal at the Bethlehem Steam Station between 1955 and 1980, although because the plant lacked pollution controls, probably the bottom ash is less toxic then modern plants.

Xfce – Wikipedia

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Xfce – Wikipedia

I use XFCE as my Desktop Environment, as it never changes. The last major version of XFCE 4 was released on September 20, 2003, which was more then 16 years ago.

It's good because it's fast, stable, and continues to be patched AND they don't ever change things around on it. It's on minor revision 4.14, but you wouldn't necessary notice the changes over the past decade and a half.

I plan to be using it in another 16 years -- in other words, 2035.

Why Do Canadians Say ‘Eh’? – Atlas Obscura

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Why Do Canadians Say ‘Eh’? – Atlas Obscura

Canadians are not particularly amused when you eagerly point out their “eh” habit, but the word has become emblematic of the country in a way that is now mostly out of their control. In response, some have embraced it, adopting it as an element of Canadian patriotism. But what even is this word? How did it come to be so associated with Canada?

“Eh” is what’s known as an invariant tag—something added on to the end of a sentence that’s the same every time it’s used. A tag, in linguistics, is a word or sound or short phrase added after a thought which changes that thought in some way. The most common tags are question tags, which change a thought into a question. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” would be one example. The tag “isn’t it” turns that statement of fact into something that could prompt a response; the speaker is asking for confirmation or rejection.