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Apple is Finally Showing Courage
I asked for this since the beginning of the Ukrainian war (on Twitter: first here, then here, then here), and today Apple delivered. Apple’s products are no longer being sold through its online store. While the App Store is still working apparently, I’m ok with their decision. On top of that, Apple will donate money, twice the amount that employees will give to help Ukrainians. It’s a good move, the only move, without using real arms, to make an impact. It’s even more powerful when many companies are doing exactly the same.
Yep, finally.
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The Real Nature of Putin as an Army Leader
🇺🇦 By not telling his own Russian troops in Belarus what the training and military exercises were all about (invading Ukraine), you can see the real nature of Putin. We didn’t need this proof, but here you go.
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The Apparent Weakness of Democracy
🇺🇦 Compared to the aggressors, the invaders and the criminals (Russian leadership and Russian’s army), democracy is slow to react. We need discussions between partners and allies. We look for consensus, it takes time. Meanwhile, the enemy is progressing. The whole process makes us look weak and undetermined. ☮️
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NATO's Response is Too Weak
🇺🇦 As I keep watching the unbearable news from Europe, from Ukraine, something is becoming clearer by the day: NATO is failing its mission of defending Europe’s integrity. NATO must step up its response and fast. We are losing precious time. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to restore any form of democracy in Ukraine after Russian wins. It breaks my heart that we need to endure these historic and horrific moments. After two years of fighting against COVID-19, I find it hard to swallow. 💔
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Going Downwards
I don’t know about you but I find current events in Ukraine very disturbing and distracting. As much as I’m happy to see Russia being more and more isolated every hour, I can see its leader being more and more pissed off and willing to commit the worst. The world seems to go in a spiralling direction toward even more violence and hard to resolve situations.
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Ukraine — Some of My News Sources
🗞️ I thought I could share the news sources I consume to stay in touch with current events in Ukraine. First, I’m following The Telegraph World News section. In particular, I keep this live webpage open all the time containing a constant news feed. Second, I’m using the BBC News World section, again referring to their live updating web page. Third, I use a Twitter list to get more up-to-the-minute updates. 🇺🇦
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Media Consumption Frenzy
🇺🇦 Current events in Ukraine are triggering a media consumption frenzy in me that resembles the one that came after the 9/11 attacks. If similarities are to continue, fear is going to be next to invite itself into my life. 😨
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Marks Left From Two Years of COVID-19
⌛ If I look at myself these days, I find that I’m less willing to go out for a quick getaway outside the city than I used to be. In the last two years, repetitive confinements and strict sanitary rules certainly left their marks on me. I hope time will bring back my willingness to open myself for opportunities and take advantage of them when they present themselves. Today was such a day of “taking advantage” of opportunities: seeing my sister, going out for a walk on a commercial strip in the afternoon. This made me happy. 😀
#COVID-19
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All My Idols are Dead
😢 What do you think they have in common? Creativity. Man, I miss all of them. They are so different from each other. Three in music, one in technology. I often ask myself: what if they were still alive, what would be their next gift to us? From who do you find inspiration?
#musings #creativity
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The Online Streaming of War
📺 With current events happening in Ukraine, with the help of smartphones and the internet, dramatic events like these are streaming with a constant flow. My attention is diverted like a plane from its programmed destination. It’s really hard to stay focused on my writing projects. I have so many. 🇺🇦
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And Suddenly, No More COVID
🦠 It is fascinating to see all media switch from one crisis to another, on a dime. A few days ago, COVID took the majority of air time. Now, no more, it’s the crisis in Ukraine. It’s as if COVID had vanished from the surface of the earth, just like that. Just a simple observation. 🇺🇦
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Ukraine, I Can't Believe It
🇺🇦 The news of this criminal invasion of a democratic and independent country like Ukraine by Putin and his army is appalling and troubling and brings an uncertain future for Europe and the world. We’re in 2022, and we still have to deal with criminal leaders like Putin. How should we react to this? Cancel any international sports events or competition in Russia, block Russians from participating in any sports events around the world, remove any medals won from the last Olympic, turn off ll the pipeline leading to Russia, freeze Russian banks assets, etc.✌🏻🕊️☮️
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A Message for Ukrainians
The news of the Russian criminal invasion of its sovereign neighbour, Ukraine, is appalling. Putin and his regime is committing an aggression that shall be punished, at the right time, at the right place with the right means. I cannot believe that we’re seeing such an invasion in Europe, in 2022. What’s next? Who’s next? We’re all going to suffer at various degrees from this utterly criminal invasion. I pay no respect to Putin, his government, his propaganda machine and every single Russian who support this aggression. This is an act of war against democracy.
No wonder why Ukraine wanted to stay in NATO camp, because Russia is simply an antidemocratic land. Democratic governments and systems are far from perfect, but they are the least imperfect solution.
For now, I’m sending my positive waves of support to the Ukrainians community of Montreal, Canada. I cannot wait for the next demonstration, so I can show my full support of the Ukrainians.
Hitler must be so proud.
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On Time Machine Backups Over Network
If you own a desktop Mac, you probably use an external drive for Time Machine. If you use a portable Mac, most likely not, and according to the Tidbits article, you’re not alone. The portability of the Mac is hindered by having an external drive hooked permanently. I, personally, have a different strategy: I use a Synology NAS DS720+ with Time Machine enabled to do my backups over the wireless network. It works perfectly, but I don’t do a full backup of my MacBook Air. Files that are part of iCloud Drive are excluded (read more here, you’ll find out why it’s a good idea). In fact, most of the files are excluded, except a few critical folders, outside the scope of any cloud syncing services. Applications aren’t backed up either (easy to recover in case of lost). Backups are small but are just what I need to protect my work.
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Am I Making a Difference?
🏢 As my workday is coming to an end, I have a few questions in my mind. The same questions pop up when I take short walks during the day, so I can step back for a few moments and reflect on my current day.
Did I do my best today? Did I help my colleagues to achieve their goals? Did It make a difference? Am I always actively listening? Did I add value to the process? Am I the best one to do this job today, right now? Did I start the right discussion, ask the right questions? Were my answers ok? Complete? 🙇🏻
So many questions.
#work #musings #workday #purpose
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Quitting Facebook but Staying in Touch
👉🏻 I posted a farewell letter on my Facebook wall before making it inactive for a while. But here is another one that I wish I would have seen before writing mine: “Goodbye Facebook”. There are a few really good ideas that I should have used myself. One is to set up an email newsletter so my friends could get some news from me and from which we could interact. Too bad I didn’t think about it. Is it too late? How many of my friends would take the time to get in touch with me and me about my life, what am I up to? Probably not that many.🤨
#musings #facebook #socialnetworks
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Slowing Our Life
I like this idea of consciously slowing our life by making choices like the ones exposed in this article “Putting on some wait”.
In a world where everyone seems to be super busy all the time, bumping into more moments with nothing to do seems like a real discovery.
Think about it the next time you are waiting in line for something. I will.
#musing #life
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Still Mystified by ProRAW
Even after reading this excellent article by the guy behind Halide, I’m still mystified by Apple’s ProRAW format. The question that keeps popping up in my mind is: if computational photography processing is involved in creating the ProRAW file (in DNG format), how can we still call this a variant of a RAW image?
Photo credit: Jason Strull on Unsplash
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Dune Movie - Woah!
Today, I finally saw the Dune movie, by the Canadian director, Denis Villeneuve. As a Canadian myself I’m so proud of him! It’s not a movie review, far from it. Let me just say that when I think about this movie, the word “equilibrium” comes to my mind. The movie is well balanced: storyline, intrigue, visual effects (visual effects serving the story), music, Dune’s world imaginary world. But the best for me were those “ornithopters”. Wow, they were sooooo cool! Can’t wait for the next part.
Have you seen the movie? What do you think of it?
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Old Computer-Related Memories
From 1993 to 1994, I owned a PowerBook Duo 210 sporting a trackball, a low-profile keyboard and a grayscale screen. I didn’t like the trackball as the pointing device. The keyboard wasn’t that great either. But, it was small, highly portable. Coupled with the Duo Dock and an external monitor, it was a cool and novel setup. It’s been a long time ago. This article was written using a M1 MacBook Air, in a coffee shop.
