Attaching the electrodes of knowledge to the nipples of ignorance.

Back in late 2010, I recorded a video titled “How to make a screencast / video tutorial on a Mac using Quicktime“, which generated a lot of questions, so I thought I would follow it up with a new one, on how to record part of your Mac’s screen:

As always, questions, comments and requests are welcome.

Last night, my sister texted me to remind me that today was the twenteith anniversary of our mother’s passing away from Multiple Sclerosis.

This past year or so, a few friends have lost their mothers, so this this has been on my mind. I barely knew my mother – actually, I knew my mother’s mother (whom we called Grandma Claire) much better than I knew her.

For the decade prior to that I had very little contact with her for various reasons. I was (obviously) quite young when my dad and mom split, and was largely unaware of the massive legal battle my father waged to keep his children. After this point, my grandma (my father’s mother) became our main maternal figure until dad remarried, and she passed away last year.

What this has left me with is pretty much only the vaguest of memories of her, like going over to her place Sunday mornings and watching Star Trek on CBC while my sister and I did homework, or sitting on the front veranda at the farm, or that she liked to laugh.

So, I don’t really have much of a sense of who she was, and earlier today, I realized I couldn’t even really recall what she looked like, with the exception of the last time I saw her alive, when I don’t believe she recognized me or my sister – but even then, the fog of time has obscurred that as well. This led me to digging through a folder of nearly over eighteen hundred scanned photos my dad had given me at our xmas family gathering last year, looking for photos of my mother, and I only found a handful, including the one in this post, which dates from about 1976 when I was about four or so.

I love the fact that my dad and I chat on the phone (old school!) for ninety minutes at a time, usually at least once a week. We talk about whatever comes to mind, and that’s awesome. While I know it’s not at all possible to have those kinds of conversations with her, I can still dig through my brain and try to learn from what I remember, talk to others in my family and see what they remember to get a better sense of the kind of person she was.

How does this affect you? Well, it probably doesn’t. But, if for some reason you aren’t on speaking terms with a parent, opening a dialogue with them to find out who they are.

A burned bridge can be rebuilt, if you do it in time.

A bit over a day since I heard the news that Steve Jobs had passed away, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it – like many people from what I’ve gathered on Twitter and Facebook.

Two thousand, eight hundred and forty-one days ago, I became a Mac user, and as I’ve told many people over the years, I spent months wishing I’d done it sooner.

There have been many people posting tributes to Steve Jobs, how his vision and sheer willpower was able to completely change so many industries, so I do not feel the need to address that.

What I would like to say is that while he was here, he defined excellence.

Now it’s up to us.

—

I’d like to add, for those of you reading on Friday, Oct 7, that ByMUG is having a special event tonight remembering Steve Jobs that is open to everyone.

By the time most of you read this, we’ll be on our way off to Algonquin Park for a some seriously needed R&R.

Here’s a list of what I’m bringing up with me to read/listen to:

Books on paper:
The Stand by Stephen King
2600 Magazine Summer edition
Color Correction Handbook by Alexis Van Hurkman
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Majestic by Whitley Strieber

AudioBooks
The WWW Trilogy; WWW: Wake, WWW: Watch and WWW: Wonder by Robert J Sawyer
What Do You Care What Other People Think? by Richard Feynman
Tell Me a Story: Science Fiction One by Arthur C. Clarke, William Gibson, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, Terry Bisson, Avram Davidson
Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda by Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton, Henry Robert Schelsinger

Audio Podcasts
Dr Kiki’s Science Hour
The Edit Bay
Get-it-Done Guy
Grammar Girl
The History of Rome
The King Cast
Learn Japanese Podcast (all 176 episodes)
MacBreak Weekly
The Math Dude
Nova ScienceNOW
The Nutrition Diva
Scientific American’s Science Talk
Search Engine
That Post Show
White Coat, Black Arts
60-Second Earth

Now, the podcasts (with the exception of the Learn to Japanese one) are part of my “normal” listening, and have just piled up somewhat as I’ve been quite busy with work this summer.

The Stand will the the book I read the first three or so days I’m up there. I haven’t read it in probably a decade, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the story feels now.

The next item I’m excited to read is (finally) Robert J. Sawyer‘s entire WWW series – I’ve been eagerly awaiting this for .. years, but now the last novel is out, so I can plow through all three books one after another.

Yes, I consider listening to an audiobook reading, but I listen to podcasts. Go figure.

We’ll see how much reading I get done this year.

This post is sort of a response to my good friend David’s recent post about drinking too much high-calorie pop.

So I made a quick video to help show what I do with it: Pop Stretching Tip

I tend to go through a fair amount of diet Pepsi while I’m working and eventually, I decided that I should see about reducing the amount I drank, so I moved to a smaller glass, and then, eventually, I began to dilute even that.

After a while of doing for every single glass, it got tiresome, so I mixed one two litre bottle into two two litre bottles, mixing in an even amount of water. And, a while after that, I tried mixing it into three two litre bottles, and I’ve been drinking this combination for about two months now.

I’ve tried similar combinations with root beer and creme soda which I enjoy as well.

Admittedly, the taste is different, but I don’t mind it – the 3x diluted diet pepsi tastes somewhat like ice tea to me.

And yes, for all you people who are going to harp on me who think I don’t drink enough water – I’d advise you to look at this image of my typical liquid intake. I drink plenty of water, and tea as well – I always have gone through lot of fluids.

Anyway, enjoy and maybe give it a try. Let me know how it works out for you.