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So the Liberals have won themselves a minority government. Or rather, the NDP, by offering lame, too-little-too-late alternatives, transferred their seats to them by people who desperately wanted to avoid having the country headed by the un-pretty hate machine that is Pierre Poilievre. I am not happy that the Liberals won but I am relieved that the Conservatives did not. However, knowing that 40% of the country wanted that unctuous cretin as leader is frankly rather alarming. Yes, the country needs real change but no-one was offering a positive one. Can Carney be pushed to alleviate the woes of his fellow countrymen? Seems doubtful -- a former banker who talks about " catalyz[ing] private investment ", which sounds a lot like subsidizing private development and is not exactly the medicine we're all looking for. Those of us who'd like Canada to avoid becoming another burning hellscape have our work cut out. I while back I wanted to mention that I had to get a new winds...

"Interesting times are here again," is what I was thinking of saying. But then I thought, "Maybe not everyone thinks so." My writing skills certainly could use some panache. The Ontario election has really bummed me out; I was in a funk a for a couple days, musing over the futility of our provincial electoral system, the apathy of the masses, the limp challenges to the Conservatives' frankly absent campaigning. Why should my soul squirm so much? Just another sad little loss in a series of terrible outcomes. I suppose everyone's news diet is sated by the clamour and spectacle going on south of us, a government fire sale that can only end in tears and tear gas, the sputtering final stages of a failed state. It seems every day brings a fresh hell. It was nice to have a winter with real snow, a spotless blanket over everything. I know some people are sick of it but I'll miss its soft stillness when it's gone, an increasingly rare luxury by my numbers. I ...

A few years back I bought a YouTube subscription and it totally transformed my video consumption habits, realizing my fear of spending more time on my phone, something I'd been trying to get a handle of. Which is not to say that I can go back to sitting through commercials, that bane of modern life. Now, instead of listening to podcasts, I listen to YouTube videos, whether in the background of washing dishes or while farming monsters in Path of Exile 2; I'm exposed to more media than ever, for better or worse. My daily journey along the YT algorithm can go to some interesting places, and the other day I encountered one such place:  Why Western Designs Fail in Developing Countries , a video discussing the problems with the OLPC or "One Laptop Per Child" campaign/device, an initiative I myself funded  some seventeen years ago. The "interesting" part to me is having the failure spelled out, precisely and incontrovertibly, a lesson I hope that is heeded by all s...