We humans place a lot of importance on the time it takes for Earth to revolve around the sun. It takes one year, and we wind up in more or less the same place — relative to the sun — each time. A time for celebration! But since the sun itself is orbiting around the centre of the galaxy, Earth moves along with it....

There’s a cool new thing you can do in HTML that is supported by all the major web browsers, including Safari. But I can’t use it because, well, Safari. You see, if you want the latest version of Safari, which has this cool new thing, you also need the latest or near-latest version of macOS. It’s been like this for...

Everyone else has had their say about the Liquid Glass design adopted by Apple, so why shouldn’t I? Actually, I’m mostly fine with it, but some of those icons just don’t make sense. The one that jumps out at me is Settings. The icon is a set of gears — glass gears apparently. I can’t help thinking about the teeth...

I’m on track to read 46 books this year — up by four from 2024. I was lucky enough to find eight books I felt were worthy of 10 stars out of 10, plus three others that didn’t quite make it with 9.5. 10/10 A Truce That Is Not Peace Miriam Toews Jennie’s Boy Wayne Johnston Etta and Otto and Russell and James Emma...

After an absence of nine years, The Animal Reporter is back with an inspiring post about the unsung heroes making lives better for the abused and homeless. I played a supporting role with a spiffy new WordPress theme that I made from scratch. This was no small accomplishment for me since past attempts over the years...

Back in August, I demonstrated the power of a drop in the bucket. One of my drops in the bucket is supporting Canada’s economy by buying Canadian as much as possible. Here’s what my mornings look like these days. Granola — Oatally Awesome — made in Canada by a Canadian company Granola — Rogers — made in Canada by a...

I’ve been using Safari for the past couple of years, assuming that it would run best on my aging iMac, now so old it’s stuck on Ventura. I mean, surely a browser built by Apple would be optimized for computers built by Apple. But in the past couple of weeks, Safari has become painful — spinning beachballs, long...

Research on environmental reporting confirms my own experience of late — positive stories are more engaging and more likely to encourage you to help with solutions. Awni Etaywe, a lecturer in linguistics at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia: If people are constantly told the situation is hopeless, they...

What’s the point of making a contribution or doing my part when it amounts to little more than a drop in the bucket? You may have heard people say this, or thought it yourself. I know I have. But lately I’ve been thinking about the cumulative power of those drops. I asked ChatGPT to do the math for me. Supposing a...

In the course of just under a month, I’ve done a U-turn on my opinion of Fix the News. I now recommend that you stay away from them, and here’s why. On July 10, I wrote a post about how Fix the News does a good job of improving your optimism with a weekly roundup of good news — concentrating on “big picture stories...