Canadian here. I recall in 1991 being woken by Swiss border guards in a train carriage full of Germans and Italians. After inspecting their passports they shined the light in my face. They saw my maple leaf on my bag and asked “Est-tu Canadian” bleary eyed I replied “oui” and they said,”it’s fine, we don’t need to see your passport”. Of course 9 years later I was thrown off a train to Czechoslovakia” because they changed the visa requirements at the last minute and my “Let’s Go” guidebook was out of date.
Oh being young, stupid and crossing boarders without a clue.
It becomes an issue when you think of the electricity source of your power generation. Clearly storing and listening to MP3s in green electricity jurisdictions like Ontario and Quebec is better than using plastic because computers are powered by nuclear and hydro power. But in Ohio and places with coal electricity generation, you should forgo recorded music altogether and only listen to live accustic music in well lit buildings that don’t require electricity.
I’m of the opinion that you should have a cassette deck for music that never made it to CD or if they did didn’t make it to streaming. Some bands only released on cassette. True I digitize those sometimes. Also, since cassettes are two bucks a pop, it is a very affordable way to listen to music from the 90s and 80s. There is a whole different sample of music that you see in a cassette bin than that you see in CD bin. It’s older music.
I’ve got a great cassette deck as part of my stereo so it sounds great. I definitely don’t listen to it on a Walkman though.
I’m a big fan of Sarah Harmer and her first band, the Saddletramps, only released two cassettes and they didn’t release CDs. That only happened with her next band. I think this is a common occurrence for bands of the 80s and 90s.
I grant you that this is a fringe obsession that most people wouldn’t care about.
I agree with the general thrust of this article. You should be able to use a computer you buy until it physically stops working, not just until the hardware isn’t supported by the new OS.
But I can’t agree at all that Linux is only useful as a server. When my old MacBook Air died, I switched to a Dell XPS with preinstalled Ubuntu. It works like a dream. The hardware is all supported and I can do anything I could do on my Mac. I just installed a new battery and hopefully it has another 6 years left in it.
The thing is. I’m a somewhat technically competent Artsy. I’m no engineer or CS specialist. Linux can work fine as a daily OS if it is supported. Dells new Ubuntu is $1800 which is ridiculous, but there is no reason why they couldn’t bring the price down. And of course there are Linux standalone manufacturers.
It might not be the year of the Linux desktop but not because Linux isn’t a perfectly viable OS for you and your mum and your technically phobic uncle. Whatever is stopping wider use, it’s not the underlying state of the software or hardware.
I can’t speak to SF, but there have been so many construction towers in Canadian cities. They are densifying rapidly, but a lot of it have been condos and apartments.
It may have something to do with urban design and zoning in the two countries. Candace has far fewer exurbs and higher suburban density. You can’t just add new housing stock by moving beyond a city’s boundaries.
Canadian Geese regiments were one of the principal tactics British and Colonial forces used to protect Upper Canada in the War of 1812. Sadly, the geese never were able to adjust to civilian life and now are just real jerks.