Don's Blog

After many years of trying to make the web a proprietary thing, and some modest success, Adobe Flash eventually gave up faced with an overwhelming set of security flaws, lack of accessibility, multi-platform woes, etc. It outlived the Java Applet Dancing Duke, and its main contribution was fancy loading bars on websites of the late 90’s.

It then entered a long zombie stage of life where you could stort of install it if you worked around a set of of challenges. Why you would? I dunno, maybe you had a geocities site cached?

Well, today is the last day of flash’s life. So sayeth the Adobe Flash Player EOL General Information Page. I don’t know why I bothered linking it, I know you have the URL memorised and have been checking it daily.

So, security experts cheer, people who care about the free and open web rejoice, nostalgia freaks shed a modest tear.

Download quick and fire up that last favourite game, for today is the last day of Flash.

OK, bike #1 was the folding bike. I liked that one a lot. So did the thief. RIP.

Bike #2 was purchased for $5 online, just to get to the office. It has been passed forward and is still in action.

Bike #3 was purchased to replace Bike #1. It was a Voltbike Yukon. I liked that one a lot too, as did the 2nd thief. Thief identified and warrant out for arrest. I’m not hopeful.

So, enter Bike #4. They are pretty scarce these days, Covid made everyone take up biking. But, I found one to my spec in Saskatoon, and, it arrived today. After some assembly, the photo above.

This is the Biktrix Ultra Beast. It has 2 batteries (each 48V @ 15AH), and a mid-drive M620 Ultra Max motor.

Now I’m awaiting some locking mechanisms….

Here’s a video of the delivery and unboxing of the Region of Waterloo’s first Covid vaccine. Its a bit anticlimactic, which is good. I was saddened to see we felt the need for security (WRPS), but, better safe than sorry I guess. The numbers suggest Toronto and Ottawa got their first batch from box to arm in very short order, Im certain well do the same here.

Got a pair of 80’s or 90’s floor-standing speakers? The ones you bought because of the iconic Maxell “Blown-Away Guy’? They no longer fit the decor of your living room? Don’t despair, they make great desk speakers. Or so was my thinking.

Yesterday I did some long needed cleanup of the home office. Where does all the junk come from? As part of this I took a pair of QX900-F that dated back, well, to shortly after university. about 1.5m in height they are not discrete. O well, they’ll fit in, right?

Hmm, they look a bit out of place. Hook them up to the Sonos, hook the Sonos line-in to a USB-DAC, boom, we got a pretty significant desktop speaker setting. YouTube was predictably a more immersive experience. But it only really got weird today when I did a couple hour long WebEx (yes, still somewhat of a thing 20+ years since I first used it). And that, my friends, was a weird experience. Its hard to say exactly. Those with good microphones where there. I mean really there. I mean almost too much there, it was like they were all around me, in my head.

Anyone else ever given this a try? I recommend it! If your speaker isn’t taller than your desk, well, I dunno, you complete that saying.

“OK Google/Alexa/Siri/Cortana, do you speak morse?” said no one ever.

But, in the swining 60’s, it seems morse was all the rage. We were going to train people to speak morse so they could type. Now, imagine a parallel chain of events where this technology had not been an evolutionary dead end, but, had become our future.

Instead of T9 predictive text becoming keyboards becoming touch becoming voice, we would have generations of people who could stutter rapidly at a screen.

The video is fascinating. Not at all creepy watching him type by ditta.

You’d finally be able to communicate w/ that Fox. What does he say again?