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Edmonton
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1760
A quick trip with the daughter, arrive a bit early and poke around downtown, the city has grown around places I remember, or, in that other trick of time and memory, I find places I remember in unfamiliar settings, the daughter notes what a change in character and culture the city has compared to Calgary, and it's true. The city has a culture - Calgary, well, not so much. Calgary's the rich brother that didn't need manners or education or character because - hey - it had money.
Now who's laughing?
Walk past the Bistro, the old building that used to house it, now a shell that conceals the bottom few floors of a skyscraper, see other familiar old buildings revitalized, Churchill Square with it's library and concert hall, the McDonald Hotel now opened (it was closed almost the entire time I lived there), despite the large marginal contingent clearly visible on the street it's physically a much more vibrant city than when I last lived here. There's perfectly interesting and dirty streets, cafes, filled with people, a very different cultural climate than Calgary, even the daughter observes, it's been too long since I've visited, I need to spend a few days here and rediscover old haunts (those that still exist), need to come back and take a few days and rediscover it, who knows who I'll run into?
The "Wee Book Inn" - they tried Calgary, lasted a year - maybe - then folded. People in Calgary don't read books, not good books at least, I pop in and admire their selection. Nothing I need - but if you read books, know books - compare their selection - in a relatively tiny shop - with the same selection in a warehouse that represents Calgary's tastes - you'd understand.
We lunch at Bistro - they've done a fine job of rebuilding, relocating, the perfect blend of familiarity and renovation, the food, double and quadrupled in price, not expensive - but, again, the curse of memory, of ninety-five cent open faced sandwiches, those days are gone. I should have fattened up.
Nostalgia. Don't know if I'm a fan, but the sand is running through the glass, and - as I'm noticing - you never dip your toe in the same river twice.
Google Dog
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1565
The internet has begun to become a rather homogeneous place, pretty much every website resembling each other, and given that 90% of them are run by 10% of the population, this isn't surprising.
But, searching as I do for peculiar things in extraordinary detail I noticed that I was reaching the end of results often quicker than I expected. I mean, my interests are obscure, but the internet is a big place...
So I Googled Dog.
WONDERFUL! Over 7 and a half BILLION results! Boy oh boy I'm gonna learn some fun things about dogs.
I quickly go past the first couple of dozen pages - first page results seldom interest me, I'm looking for the obscure, remember, and the curious.
Wait a minute - Page 23 - now only 23 pages of results? WTF happened? And, no, I don't believe there's just 230 results. Nice try guys.
Scroll to the bottom of the page:
Notice how Google is censoring me - it makes it an option to search with omitted results included, but really, I should trust it. All the other missing results will be much like the results I've already flipped through.
What is rather droll here is that there are a lot of concerned people worried about Google's compliance with Chinese censorship, and aren't paying any mind to the fact that Google is fully censoring any searches done here. And - 23 pages of results - how many were paid placements for dogfood - petstores - etc, etc. So basically I search for "Dog" and I'm left with the impression the entire World Wide Web is roughly the size of ... I dunno - Drumheller?
I'm being shown 0.0000030383091149273452% of the internet's results on dogs. It's like Google has decided the remaining 99.999999+% of the web is dark. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."
I am Jesus
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: WTF
- Hits: 1304
Apparently now a game. You can view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3XY1R7ydTA&feature=emb_logo
They've gone to town with the comments...
Stormy: Week of Dec 8 - 2019
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Stormy
- Hits: 948
3 Letters and a postcard this week, + unboxing a couple of overdue items from the "Haven't yet unboxed box...".
Yech.
The week before I'd gotten no mail - wondering what happened (given that I'd sent him all those self-addressed envelopes). It turns out "Mystery Subscriber" was getting all my mail. Mystery subscriber has since unsubscribed with a "Cease and Desist" order so hopefully my mail will be resuming...
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