Lets be careful on social media. I spend a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter, and these days even more. While we should always be careful online, these days we need to be even more vigilant.
Please don’t reflexively repost anything without reading it first. Completely. And after you’ve read it, put some of your elementary school social studies skills to use, and ask some simple questions.
What is the source?
Are there other independent sources?
Do these sources have consistent, reliable track records?
When was it first published? Are you reposting something taken out of context from weeks or months or years ago?
What is the tone of the message? Is it overly negative or positive? Is there a hidden agenda?
I’m sure we can all slow down and think of other simple ways to test the messaging. I know I can get excited and start clicking my way down multiple rabbit holes.
Now is a good time to slow down and think more. . .
Got one of these on Amazon the other day. A Palo 12-slot charger. It has a recondition function, and can take both NiMH and NiCD batteries, AA and AAA. So far, so good! C$40.
I have a couple of 4-slot chargers, but it’ll be great to be able to plug in just one and do a dozen.
I have an old Mac Mini that I use to play around with some Mac apps, and to use as a Netflix machine. I noticed today that Time Machine was not finding the backup disk. This has happened several times over the last few months even though I never turn off the Mini, and never unplug the external drive Time Machine is backing up to.
Turning the drive off and on did nothing, unplugging it from the USB port and plugging it back in did nothing. I had to reboot the Mini to get Time Machine to find the drive again.
I realized it’s been ages since I logged in to this WordPress blog as admin to check for updates and to see if VaultPress was still regularly backing up the site.
No worries, VaultPress has been chugging away just fine, and has over 50 backups in the, er, vault.
10, 15, 20 years ago, I’d go to sustainable communities conferences and revel in people getting charged up and excited.
Now I go to sustainable communities conferences and I see people walking out of keynote presentations in tears. . .
It’s been much the same message all along, but it’s finally sinking in with more folks that time is running out.
I work and talk with “kids” in their 20s and 30s, half my age, and more of them are afraid to have children, because there is dwindling optimism in what the future holds.
I help deliver watershed education programs to elementary schools, and there’s an unease among the kids, and alarm among the teachers. . . .
It’s like a world war.
Is this our D-Day? Environmental Destruction Day.
It’s said we can still turn things around, but it’s going to take WAY more effort than any government or almost any political candidate from the big two parties in the current Canadian Federal election has been willing to admit. . .
Are we up to this?
Can we as humans see beyond short-term gain and look a few generations into the future?
Lovely day in downtown Vancouver at the EcoCity 2019 event (@ecocity2019). I was helping staff the Stream of Dreams Murals Society booth. I’ve been doing some PT work this year helping deliver the Stream of Dreams watershed education and community art program in schools.
The famous Naruto whirlpools and the Onaruto Bridge in Japan. These shots are from back in April this year. Unfortunately we missed the peak whirlpool tidal action by about half an hour.
As someone who is not that great with heights, this was quite the exercise in willpower for me .
A few rusty treasures unearthed while cleaning and organizing our utility room today.
On the left, a massive old door stop, gleaned from the site of a former farm on Byrne Creek just a few minutes walk from our place. (All part of a municipal park for decades now. . .)
On the right, a spike from the late, lamented, electric Interurban tram line that ran near our place and all the way out to Chilliwack before it was sadly decommissioned with the rise of cars and highways.
What a loss!
I hear that the teeny Powerhouse Creek that runs a few dozen meters out our back gate and into Byrne Creek was thus named for having a steam-powered electrical generator for the Interurban back in the day. The wee creek taps an underground aquifer that runs to this day. . .
.
