https://devyn.ca/blog/Recent content in Blogs on Devyn BarrieHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usFri, 07 Jul 2023 02:34:05 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/some-links-about-rss/Fri, 07 Jul 2023 02:34:05 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/some-links-about-rss/Since I wrote Time for RSS to shine again I keep finding more resources and articles about how to take advantage of RSS to stay organized online. What’s old is new again, folks. Next thing you know, I will be posting about the newest release of Netscape Navigator. GET THE NET! The RSS Advisory Board is suddenly posting blogs after years of dormancy. One recent post of interest was Every Mastodon User Has an RSS Feed.https://devyn.ca/blog/stop-embedding-tweets-on-websites/Sun, 02 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/stop-embedding-tweets-on-websites/Elon Musk began July by breaking Twitter yet again. This is just the latest in his series of bizarre decisions to worsen the user experience and cut down on actual use of the service. Concurrent with the rate limiting, Twitter is also now requiring people to sign in first to view tweets. You can't just go to twitter.com and see a tweet anymore. This lock-down of information has led me to wonder if days are numbered for tweets embedded on websites.https://devyn.ca/blog/my-thoughts-on-canadas-online-news-act/Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/my-thoughts-on-canadas-online-news-act/Things are not looking too good right now for the distribution of online news in Canada. The Online News Act, or Bill C-18, received royal assent last week. Per a government news release: "The Online News Act levels the playing field between news businesses and large digital platforms to create greater fairness to ensure sustainability of the news industry. Through a market-based approach, it encourages voluntary commercial agreements between platforms and news businesses with minimal government intervention, as well as crucial safeguards to preserve the independence of the press.https://devyn.ca/blog/why-i-dont-use-analytics-on-my-blog/Thu, 22 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/why-i-dont-use-analytics-on-my-blog/Blogging isn't what it used to be. Although the glory days may be past us, the medium still survives in various forms. Probably one of the rarer forms (but in my view the best, most enjoyable) is the very same genre that made blogging an early hit: simple websites hosting personal writing. Call it the "no-frills" genre. The "no-frills" bit is an important distinction. There are quite a few personal blogs out there, but certainly some have frills.https://devyn.ca/blog/wildfires-indoor-air-quality/Tue, 13 Jun 2023 09:06:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/wildfires-indoor-air-quality/Listening to the radio the other day, I learned something interesting about the risks of inhaling smoky air. The smallest particulates in wildfire smoke are less than 2.5 µm in diameter. This is incredibly tiny—it’s about 30 times smaller than the thickness of human hair. Such a minuscule size means these particulates can get deep into your lungs when inhaled, and even work their way into your bloodstream1. I found that unsettling enough to dig out an old plug-in air purifier and load it up with a new HEPA filter within a day.https://devyn.ca/blog/org-mode-hyperlinks/Thu, 08 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/org-mode-hyperlinks/Because I keep forgetting how: [[LINK][DESCRIPTION]] More: The Org Manualhttps://devyn.ca/blog/bring-back-rss/Tue, 23 May 2023 20:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/bring-back-rss/I've been playing with some thoughts about RSS becoming relevant again for over a year now, but I wasn't sure anybody would be interested in hearing about it. Nowadays, it's fashionable to have opinions on the state of Twitter, so I can take this opportunity to shoehorn my half-baked ideas into the discussion. The trouble with Twitter is just one instance of a larger challenge: social media sites are unreliable. Particularly in recent years, journalists and bloggers who depend on social media have found it difficult to distribute their content, get exposure and earn income.https://devyn.ca/blog/hugo-easily-the-nicest-way-to-publish-a-blog-in-2023/Thu, 05 Jan 2023 19:53:46 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/hugo-easily-the-nicest-way-to-publish-a-blog-in-2023/These days, it is almost too easy to get up and running with your very own blog. Given the way certain social media sites (i.e. Twitter) have been functioning lately, this is a good thing. A blog in 2023 is still the best way to get your thoughts out there, while retaining control over the curation and presentation of the content. Putting a bunch of static html pages on the internet is so 1990s… or is it?https://devyn.ca/blog/nice-shots-of-the-canada-day-bmx-show-at-zibi/Sun, 03 Jul 2022 00:55:06 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/nice-shots-of-the-canada-day-bmx-show-at-zibi/On Canada Day, Place des Festivals Zibi in Gatineau was host to a series of BMX shows by Krusher BMX. I couldn’t get enough of it! Luckily they had a few shows throughout the afternoon so I was able to enjoy the action while getting my fill of photos. There are more like the one shown above on my flickr page…https://devyn.ca/blog/how-to-succeed-in-college-mathematics/Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/how-to-succeed-in-college-mathematics/Title: How to Succeed in College Mathematics, by Richard M. Dahlke, PhD. ISBN: 978-0-615-16803-6 An excellent guidebook of interest to anyone studying mathematics at the post-secondary level. Written by Professor Richard M. Dahlke, a U.S.-based professor of mathematics, How to Succeed in College Mathematics gives useful advice on topics such as improving academic performance, keeping a healthy attitude towards studying, and how to improve problem-solving skills. An illustration of a plane in 3D-space passing through the origin.https://devyn.ca/blog/solving-an-integral-equation/Sat, 12 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/solving-an-integral-equation/An integral equation is one that contains an unknown function under the integral sign. When that integral is over an interval varying with \(x\), it is more specifically classified as a Volterra integral equation. I came across this interesting, relatively simple Volterra equation in Stewart's Calculus and thought it would be interesting to try out. \[y(x) = 2 + \int_2^x (t - t\cdot y(t))\ \text{d}t.\] The first thing that comes to mind is that we need to get the unknown function \(y(t)\) out from the integral sign.https://devyn.ca/blog/inverse-matrix-proof/Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/inverse-matrix-proof/Proposition: A matrix with a row consisting of all zeroes cannot be inverted, nor can one with a column of all zeroes. Proof Let A denote some \(n\times n\) matrix where one of its rows has only zeroes --- let us refer to this as row r. Then take another \(n \times n\) matrix B and suppose toward contradiction that \(B = A^{-1}\). Then the product AB must equal the identity matrix.https://devyn.ca/blog/speed-of-sound-in-mayonnaise/Fri, 20 Aug 2021 08:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/speed-of-sound-in-mayonnaise/Universal Wave Equation Example According to r/EngineeringStudents, the speed of sound in mayonnaise is 2613 \(\textrm{ms}^{-1}\). According to Scientific American, a soprano's frequency range could be between 250 and 1500 Hz, so let's see what the wavelength of a 1200 Hz soprano tone would be as it passes through mayonnaise. Our equation for the speed of a wave: \[v = \lambda f\] Insert values. \[2613 \textrm{ ms}^{-1} = \lambda (1200 \textrm{ Hz}).https://devyn.ca/blog/annotated-tikz-example-the-displacement-formula/Sat, 03 Apr 2021 18:06:30 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/annotated-tikz-example-the-displacement-formula/The displacement formula is a kinematic equation used in physics. I created this graphic using TikZ, a package that goes with the document preparation system LaTeX to enable programmatic vector graphic creation. $$\Delta d = v_1 t + \frac{1}{2}at^2.$$ The annotated code is available in my GitLab repository.https://devyn.ca/blog/latex-in-two-flavours-a-review-of-org-mode-and-texstudio/Sun, 07 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/latex-in-two-flavours-a-review-of-org-mode-and-texstudio/LaTeX is a software system used most commonly in the typesetting of scientific and mathematical documents. More precisely, LaTeX is a macro package built on top of the TeX system created by computer scientist Donald Knuth in the 1970s. LaTeX allows users to create documents in plain text, achieving semi-custom formatting effects with special commands. LaTeX is a powerful alternative to word processors such as Microsoft Word, although it is more niche.https://devyn.ca/blog/restoring-a-directory-from-vorta/Fri, 05 Mar 2021 06:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/restoring-a-directory-from-vorta/Vorta is a client program for MacOS and Linux computers that provides a graphical user interface (GUI) for Borg, a powerful backup tool that is normally used in command-line. Borg is a deduplicating backup program, which means once you initialize a repository somewhere (like on an external hard drive) and take your first backup, it will only copy files that have changed since the previous backup. This allows users to take backups as frequently as they want without it taking up an insane amount of space.https://devyn.ca/blog/operating-systems/Mon, 15 Feb 2021 20:00:00 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/operating-systems/One of the most fascinating topics I have learned about recently in my computer technologies course are operating systems. It really took this course to make me think about things I would have taken for granted before. One example is, I wondered: wait, how does a computer even restart itself? (The answer was anticlimactic: the power is never actually cut during a reboot, the computer just resets its components…) Anyway, what is an operating system?https://devyn.ca/blog/personality-differences/Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:54:39 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/personality-differences/People vary wildly in they ways they accomplish simple things. Sometimes, it makes you wonder what it says about their personality. My friends put ketchup next to their fries, whereas I drizzle it on top of the fries and tackle them with a fork. My boss is a practitioner of the good ol’ put-the-whole-email-in-the-subject-line. I opt to send one-line emails without subject lines. I am beginning to think I’m chaotic good.https://devyn.ca/blog/ottawa-citizen-feature/Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:29:58 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/ottawa-citizen-feature/I recently worked on a freelance feature for the Ottawa Citizen, about how artificial intelligence is being developed and used in Ottawa. It was published on April 13, 2019 in their Saturday Observer and also made the front page in print. Check it out here. I also wrote a supplementary piece about whether we’re all going to die at the hands of AI. Cheers!https://devyn.ca/blog/i-hate-the-word-nomenclature/Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:58:04 +0000https://devyn.ca/blog/i-hate-the-word-nomenclature/It’s like a bunch of snooty technical people got together and said “we use so much jargon, let’s create some jargon to describe our jargon.”https://devyn.ca/blog/should-you-put-two-spaces-after-a-period/Tue, 08 Jan 2019 11:01:02 -0500https://devyn.ca/blog/should-you-put-two-spaces-after-a-period/No.                                     You shouldn’t.https://devyn.ca/blog/how-to-strike-fear-in-the-hearts-of-your-enemies-with-these-three-simple-words-a-life-hack/Fri, 07 Dec 2018 20:16:05 -0500https://devyn.ca/blog/how-to-strike-fear-in-the-hearts-of-your-enemies-with-these-three-simple-words-a-life-hack/Sick of people in crowded public areas not hearing your meek pleas of “pardon me” and lame cries of “excuse me please”? It is commonly misunderstood that these are phrases effectively used politely and gently. Wrong. No, for real results you must transform them into tools of intimidation, to be barked aggressively at all who dare to get in your way — all the while continuing to barrel your way forward.https://devyn.ca/blog/some-personal-news/Sat, 01 Dec 2018 12:35:00 -0500https://devyn.ca/blog/some-personal-news/For six months now, I’ve been doing double duty in my local blogging activities. In addition to editing OttawaStart.com, I also took over StittsvilleCentral.ca for my friend Glen Gower, who ran (successfully) for city council. With the election behind us, it was time to re-evaluate and I’m thrilled to share the result of the last month or so of work. I will be stepping away from StittsvilleCentral.ca, which is getting new owners, and I will be taking ownership of OttawaStart.https://devyn.ca/blog/one-year-since-the-2017-ontario-college-strike--was-it-worth-it/Sun, 14 Oct 2018 00:00:00 -0400https://devyn.ca/blog/one-year-since-the-2017-ontario-college-strike--was-it-worth-it/The strike began at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2017. Normally it would have been another Monday back to school. Instead, it was the start of a five-week work stoppage – involving 12,000 college teachers – that would prove to be one of the longest and most disruptive Ontario has ever seen. As a journalism student, I had a first-row seat to the drama. I picked up the story first thing in September for the Algonquin Times, after returning to school.