Category Society
Somebody Is Watching Me
Think of yourself as a snail. Whenever you surf the Internet you leave behind a small trail of slime for others to see. And exploit. I know there are ways to cover my tracks online, to disable “cookies,” to use proxy servers and various other methods to give a certain amount of anonymity. That knowledge […]
Diefenbunker
I grew up in a society that prepared for a war that never happened. That is something we can all be thankful for. The Cold War was the longest major conflict of the 20th century, and arguably the one with the fewest casualties – and that’s even when you take into account the battles that […]
Random Thoughts About Computer Technology
I was doing a computer backup, something I probably don’t do as often as I should (and neither do you!). During the process I was struck by the advances in technology over the past couple of decades. What triggered the thought was watching the transfer rate on my laptop screen. Depending on the type of […]
Today’s Stupid Question Comes From…
… the nice people at Bell Canada. At 7:01 p.m. last night an email from their customer service people popped into my inbox. It read as follows: Please tell us how we’re doing. L Anderson, Thank you for your recent call to Bell, at 3:51 PM on Tuesday, July 19, 2016. We’d love to […]
Boxed Water
It’s supposed to be more environmentally friendly – but I just saw it as a great marketing gimmick. I was at a function a couple of weeks ago where I was given a box of water with my meal. To me bottled water always has a plastic taste. I tend to avoid it unless I […]
Sex, Death and Bowling
I was seduced by the title. Not the sex and death aspects but the bowling. I’d never heard of the film before I discovered it while browsing through Netflix. The premise seemed reasonable enough: a family dealing with an impending, premature, death with a bowling tournament as the backdrop. Life goes on after all. My […]
Keep Calm and Drive Over
For some reason the City of Ottawa installed traffic calming devices on my street a couple of weeks ago. There was no warning, no consultation with the community, just the installation of black and yellow dividers in the middle of the street. I’m assuming the intent is to slow traffic, though I’ve never noticed speed […]
Northern Ramadan
The sun rose yesterday at eleven minutes before one a.m. in Pangnirtung in northern Canada. It set at 11:55 p.m. No, that is not a misprint. They had less than an hour of darkness. Looking at the Environment Canada website it seems to me that further north there is no sunrise or sunset, that […]
The Big Give II
Saturday morning I took part in The Big Give, but I have been waffling about telling you all about it. I did mention earlier than I wanted to participate in this free garage sale that was being held at 65 Ottawa churches, including Cedarview Alliance where I am a member. Participate I did, but […]
Municipal Tensions
Clashes between church and state are never pretty. There is a tension between the sacred and the secular, between worldviews that all too often seem diametrically opposed when you would expect them to be complementary. After all, both the state and religious authorities are ostensibly concerned with the well-being of the people. I guess it […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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