Finishing packing up my bags for Thailand! It’s getting real. This is our last trip of the year after Egypt, Jordan, France and Mexico. We were on a roll to celebrate our twenty years anniversary together!
On a side note: I’m doing some tweaks to my Scribbles Poster mini web app to add image uploads… it will be useful. 🖼️👀
My late father passed away in 2021, but only today did I convince myself to delete his Facebook account. It’s a weird feeling. He would have been 98. 😔
In recent days, as we head into colder, wetter fall weather, I restarted my daily treadmill routine while listening to educational videos on YouTube. It’s the best I can do to keep learning new things while staying in good shape. I conclude my exercise session with stretching and meditation using Apple Fitness+.
This weekend, I had the opportunity to reconnect with my former university colleagues (1987-1993). For many of us, it had been 35 years since we last saw each other. We had a lot to catch up on. We all studied computer science and have all had careers in that field. For many, it’s a time of reflection and retirement. That’s not my case yet. I’ve been fascinated by several of their journeys, and I’ve noticed a shared feeling about artificial intelligence: it’s both impressive and dizzying, moving too fast, and we’re questioning what the next generation will look like.
Today might be one of the few times I visit Facebook1😔. I’ll do so to acknowledge those who write, “Hi JF, happy birthday, and have a great day.” 🙂 and thank them. Over the years, fewer people bother to run their automated yearly greetings; they know I’m not active on Facebook. However, many, even if they have my phone number, don’t switch to iMessage to send their wishes.😔 True friends acknowledge my stance with Meta and choose to skip Facebook, sending their best wishes the right way. 🫠 Not posting on Facebook to say “hi” is a birthday gift itself. 🎁
I still have a Facebook account but don’t use it; I use it to respond to people who don’t know anything other than Messenger. ↩︎
There are so many small things that differ in August and make this month one of the most enjoyable: the hours of sunlight, the angle of the shadows, the outdoor temperature at sunrise, the reduced humidity, the chirping of crickets in the evening, the air smell, the mild temperature, the vegetation gradually transforming into mature growth that begins to decline. I love everything about August.
I follow technological news every day, and I’m starting to get nervous about the situation surrounding investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure. This video is particularly revealing and convincing. There’s increasing talk of a tech bubble, much bigger than the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s. What worries me, actually, is the impact of this crisis on my finances. I’ll be retiring in less than 7 years. A financial crisis of the magnitude being predicted would take years to recover from. I wonder if it’s time to reevaluate some of my investment strategies. 🤨
I’ve been a weather enthusiast since I was a teenager. At that time, I wanted a weather station (which I got) and manually recorded weather conditions on paper, one page per day with three observations per page (early morning, noon, and before going to bed). It was fun, and I learned a lot in those days. I even met a real meteorologist who was also doing the public radio weather forecast. I was lucky. I still have an interest in weather and climate, but it takes a different form these days.
This morning, I wondered if Claude AI could read a surface conditions map. It can. 🤯 I wonder if today’s meteorologists are using AI to summarize weather conditions.
Valid morning of July 18 (08:00 EDT / 12:00 UTC). A single-moment snapshot, not a forecast.
A tale of two countries this morning. A deep summer storm system is spinning over northern Quebec and the Hudson Strait, keeping the Far North unsettled and breezy, while most of southern Canada sits under warm, humid, and comparatively quiet air. The sharpest weather is well to the north; the population belt along the U.S. border is having a mild, muggy summer day.
This is the active zone. A strong low is churning over the region, so expect gusty winds, unsettled skies, and periods of cloud and showers, especially around Ungava Bay and the Hudson Strait. Conditions ease the further south you go.
Warm and humid, with a gentle flow of muggy air moving up from the south. Comfortable-to-sticky temperatures and a fair amount of moisture in the air — a typical mid-July feel. Nothing severe on the map here.
Sitting under the influence of a broad ridge of high pressure anchored over the Atlantic and Greenland. That generally means more settled conditions in the east, with the ridge acting as a bit of a wall that keeps systems moving off the continent from barrelling straight through.
A few weak, shallow low-pressure areas are scattered across the Prairies and interior west. These are minor and disorganized — think passing clouds and the odd shower rather than any organized storm. Broadly unremarkable.
Under a mix of weak systems along the coast, with generally mild conditions. No dominant storm feature — a quiet Pacific setup for the day.
Cold air remains locked over the high Arctic, as you’d expect, with the northern Quebec storm being the standout feature. The rest of the territories are relatively calm.
If you’re in southern Canada, it’s a warm, humid, low-drama summer day. If you’re in northern Quebec, Nunavik, or Labrador, keep an eye on the wind and showers from that storm parked overhead. The east is settled thanks to Atlantic high pressure, and the west and Prairies are quiet with only minor disturbances.
Taking a short break today for a 50 KM bike ride around Montreal Island. The expected weather is cloudy and rather cold, at 12C, with a 40% chance of scattered showers. I wished for better weather, but hey… could be much worse. Have a great day. 🚴🏻♂️
I feel like I’ve reached a stage where I’ve completed all the projects aimed at improving my digital ecosystem. The native apps I wanted to replace have been replaced, and the new apps perfectly suited to my wishes are now a reality. I’m entering a stage of sporadic fine-tuning. It’s sometimes satisfying not to always have to work on the toolbox and instead simply be in a mode of using these tools.