A friend of a friend found copies of The Globe newspaper from Feb. 4, 1913, in the drawer of an old cabinet. The Globe was a Toronto publication founded in 1844. It later absorbed The Mail and Empire to form The Globe and Mail in 1936, according to Wikipedia.
I was struck by an ad on the bottom right corner of the front page.
The ad points out that much of the money Canadians spend on American goods is influenced by U.S. advertising. Over a hundred years later, that still holds true. Ask yourself why you buy certain brands. Are they really any better? Or are you just familiar enough with the name to make you feel comfortable buying it?
The Globe’s solution, of course, was for Canadian businesses to carry out advertising campaigns in the newspaper. That’s one solution. The other is for Canadian consumers to think twice before being swayed by ubiquitous U.S. marketing.
I continue to experiment with my Linux-based ThinkPad. I’m coming to grips with software, having found a nice (and free) writing app called GhostWriter. It’s not quite as nice as the IA Writer on my Mac, but it’s still pretty good. I’m using it now to write this post. (Update: I switched to Typora.)
On the hardware side, I was disappointed with the ThinkPad's trackpad. Tapping didn’t work much of the time, forcing me to resort to full-on clicks. So I replaced it with a glass one that cost $60 from Ali Express.
Replacement was impressively easy. Opening a ThinkPad involves loosening some screws then prying along the seam to unsnap it. Inside, I disconnected the battery so it could in turn be unscrewed, allowing me to get at the trackpad underneath. Then I disconnected the trackpad and removed its screws.
I put in the new trackpad, then reversed the process by connecting, screwing and snapping. It only took about 10 or 15 minutes, and I was being cautious since this was my first time doing anything like this.
I guess it’s possible to do something similar with a MacBook, but they are famously difficult to upgrade, which makes it a little too scary for me.
And yes, I’m enjoying a trackpad that responds to light taps.
Now that I've finished writing this, I’ll open Textpattern on Firefox and post. Thus I will have completed my first task, all on Linux. It’s a milestone of sorts.
Last night we were treated to a spectacular display of fireworks. The barrage lasted several minutes, with no pauses between the blasts. I suspect they were being fired from two or three points simultaneously.
That was the best one. There were shorter, less-intense displays in other parts of the city.
You can count on Halloween fireworks every year in British Columbia — a tradition that seems not to have taken root anywhere else in the world.
My research indicates that it started in the 1970s with older teenagers using firecrackers for pranks. It was the trick part of trick-or-treating. They would set them off in their back yard, or maybe toss one into a garbage can or sewage drain to be extra mischievous.
Regulations have made it almost impossible to buy firecrackers, so the activity evolved into the next best thing, fireworks. You aren’t really allowed to use fireworks either, at least not without a permit. But it happens anyway.
People who move to B.C. are baffled by Halloween fireworks, but I grew up here and they seem normal. I can remember setting off firecrackers when I was a teenager. I didn’t let go of one of them soon enough and hurt my fingers.
So I’m driving along the information superhighway, being careful to obey the speed limit, when suddenly I hear a siren. It’s the internet police. Not again!
During my first run-in with the internet police, the officer explained to me the difference between “lie” and “lay.” I learned a lot but didn’t appreciate the exasperation and sarcasm.
I pull over and roll down the window. What would it be this time?
“What seems to be the problem, officer?”
“I noticed in one of your blog posts that you used the word ‘lead’ when you meant ‘led.’ The past tense of the verb ‘lead’ is ‘led.’ I’m trying to lead you down the right path. I don’t want you to be led astray.
“Lead, the metal, is used in your car’s battery. It sounds the same as ‘led,’ but they have nothing else in common.
“And anyway, why would you want to spell the present and past tense of a verb the same way?”
I knew the officer was right. How could I have made that mistake? So I made my case.
“I feel like I’ve been led by the nose, led down the garden path. I promise to get the lead out and do better.”
I could see my plea was going over like a lead balloon. At least I couldn’t be accused of having a lead foot.
“OK, this is your last warning. Next time for sure you’re getting a fine.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and drove off. My head was filled with “L” words — lie, lay, lead, led. Confusing, yes, but I was confident I could get the hang of it.
I’ve long be Linux curious, and my wish finally came true over the weekend when my son installed Fedora and GNOME on an old ThinkPad for me.
As I understand it, Fedora is the name of one of the Linux distributions, a.k.a. distro, and GNOME is the name of the desktop environment. The distro is the guts of the thing, and the desktop environment is how you interact with it.
I should add that this is GNOME 50, the most recent version. If you check the Wikipedia article, you’ll see that GNOME has gone through some major revisions over the years. (Oops, looks like GNOME 51 just came out.)
This one appeals to me because it reminds me of the Mac interface I’m used to, but doesn’t wind up being a clunky version of it. A three-finger swipe down brings up the equivalent of the dock, Spotlight and mission control, and a second three-finger swipe down brings up the equivalent of launchpad showing all the apps plus the desktops.
It was pleasantly surprised to find that it also looks pretty nice. I clearly had preconceived notions that were wrong.
The general feeling I get is one of wide open space. It’s your computer and you’re free to do whatever you please with it. This comes with that caveat that it can also be a little scary — you might be left with choice paralysis in some cases.
For example, I couldn’t figure out how to move a window without clicking down and holding on the track pad. I’m used to three-finger dragging with my Mac’s track pad, which I find both easy and elegant.
Turns out there are lots of way to move a window. You can even set things up to work with three-finger dragging if you’re willing to put in the time and effort. You can tweak Linux to your heart’s content. I know, though, that there are many people who are tweak-averse. They just want things to work.
Pre-installed apps, such as Firefox and Terminal, worked fine but I managed to hit a stumbling block with Maps. What can I say? I like maps, so I was drawn to it.
It looked pretty good, but I wanted it to find my location. Unfortunately, it kept putting me in a nearby town. There are technical reasons for this that may have something to do with where I live, and I might be able to fix it if I’m willing to do the work. The real answer, I learned, is that this app is seldom used because most people prefer the app on their phone.
So I was OK with moving on from that.
My next adventure was installing VSCodium. That went OK, but then I tried saving a file and was stymied by an error message. In the end, this was resolved by installing the “native” version as opposed to the Flatpak version. OK, now I know this is a thing.
I wanted to install the City Lights theme in VSCodium, but after way too much time going down rabbit holes in Terminal, I decided that the default theme is fine for now. I faced similar problems with City Lights for VSCodium on my Mac but was able to resolve them, so I might revisit this.
At this point, I had to ask myself whether these glitches were a typical experience on Linux or whether I was just having some bad luck. I will say that installing Filezilla and connecting to servers went without a hitch.
So what’s next? According to the GNOME subreddit, there are a bunch of new email apps out. Maybe I’ll try one of those. I’m kind of surprised there isn’t one pre-installed.
On that same subreddit, I saw an extension that changes the look of the icons. I checked out the instructions for installation — clone the repository and run the installer — and decided I’d had enough of Terminal for awhile. I might try again later.
Every once in awhile, I see a beautiful, minimalist blog with impeccable typography, like this one from Manuel Moreale, and think I should do something similar with Newsonaut.
But then I think Newsonaut is already minimalist. Take away the sun and stars and it’s especially minimalist. Try it for yourself with this button.
That will never work for me. If I’m going to turn my inner space into outer space, I need it to be in something that looks like outer space.
Like a lot of people, I’m bummed about Reddit cutting off RSS access. I have a few subreddits that I like to check on regularly in my feed reader, and their feeds will no longer exist after mid-November.
The good news is that Lemmy, the fediverse alternative to Reddit, has RSS feeds and likely always will. Lemmy usage has gone up substantially in recent years, so it’s not hard to find communities (their version of subreddits) with plenty of members and comments.
The bad news is that if you have a niche interest, there might not be an equivalent Lemmy community. Or if there is, it might not have much traction. Still, that could change if Lemmy’s growth continues.
In this example for the PC Gaming community, you would add “/feeds” after your Lemmy instance (mine is lemmy.ca), and tack “.xml” onto the end. Then copy and paste that into your feed reader.
https://lemmy.ca/c/pcgaming
https://lemmy.ca/feeds/c/pcgaming.xml
With my RSS app, Reeder, I just have to put in the name of a subreddit, and it does the rest. Not so for Lemmy. I have to put in the full URL.
I tried a bunch of communities using this method and they all worked with NetNewsWire on my Mac, with one heartbreaking exception — Star Trek. But there is a fix.
The Star Trek communities — there are a few of them — are on their own server at startrek.website. That means you need to use their instance instead of your own. So it comes out looking like this.
https://startrek.website/feeds/c/startrek.xml
There may be other communities like this, so it’s something to bear in mind.
Ideally, the makers of RSS apps would find a way of automating the process for us. I just might suggest that to some of them.
This is now officially the third highest yearly output for Newsonaut, having surpassed my 64 posts in 2014. The only years when I did better were 2012 with 135 and 2011 with 169.
Yes, this is my 66th post of 2026. There has been a resurgence lately in the indie web, and I’m happy to be a part of it.
I was a little bit sad, though, to read Bryce Wray’s last post. He basically doesn’t feel like he has anything left to say that would be of interest to readers.
It hits close to home because it appears he is only a few years older than me. I know the down sides of growing old. Health issues you never knew existed suddenly become part of your everyday life. It’s not as easy to summon the energy you once took for granted.
I can’t predict where I’ll be in a couple of years. I never would have predicted where I am now. But I’m pretty sure this blog will last for a few more years, and I’m optimistic that it will last many more years.
Firefox 157 has a slick new interface. And the internet is losing its shit.
The updated interface has been dismissed as “round” and already you can find instructions on how to roll back to the old look. And that’s a mild insult compared with “needless and ugly.”
Such drama!
At first the only difference I noticed was the tabs. They are more of a pill shape now and have an outline around them. The background has a subtle gradient that you can customize.
After clicking around a bit, I discovered that some of the menus have more-pronounced round corners. I was disappointed that the bookmark manager hadn’t been similarly updated. Oh, and the search box at the bottom has a pill shape similar to the tabs.
I’m no power user, so maybe there are other design changes that I missed. And honestly, if I hadn’t been told there were changes, I might not even have spotted them — at least not right away.
If you watch the accompanying video, it’s obvious that Firefox is reaching out to new users. A shiny new interface might seem useless to crusty old-timers, but marketing has shown time and again that many people respond to this. A thing can’t just be new, it has to look new.
It remains to be seen whether these efforts will do anything for the Firefox market share, but I’m glad to see them at least making an effort.
I’ve said in the past that I find posts written all in lower case to be hard to read, and I stand by that. I need a few capital letters here and there to get my bearings.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an appreciation for lower case. In fact I downright prefer it.
Capital letters have a boring lack of variety. They’re all the same height and they’re all kind of blocky. Sure they should be used, but sparingly.
Lower case letters have so much more diversity: half height (like a, c or e), three-quarters height (like t), or full height (with an ascender like b or d). Or a descender that takes them below the line: g, j, p, q, y.
There’s a reason you never see an entire sentence written in all caps. It’s even harder to read than all lower case. Radio announcers write their copy in all caps for this very reason. It forces them slow down and enunciate.
Let’s check out some particularly appealing lower case letters. If you’re not using serifs, you should switch so you can see how beautiful letters can be.
Two of my favourites are the ones with a tittle: i and j. You won’t find any capital letters with dots over them — at least not in English.
Another favourite is g: I love the loop on the bottom and the stem poking out the top.
And look at this a: See how nicely it curves on the top and leaves a bowl underneath — all in the space of half a capital.
Then there are the ligatures. Two f’s join as ff. An f and an i become fi. This is artistry you won’t see among the upper case.
The only real competitor among the capitals is Q with its swooping tail.
But what about headings? Write them like you would a sentence, but without a period at the end — no capitals unless necessary. And that includes what is known as title case.
With title case, pretty much every word is capitalized with the exception of some shorter words. The trouble with writing a heading as if it were a title is that real titles get lost in them. Suppose you want to put the title of book in your heading. If all the words are capitalized, it’s hard to know where the book title begins and ends.
A great use of lower case is Apple’s naming of some of its products with lower case letters at the beginning. For example, I’m writing this on an iMac, which runs on macOS. Do not be one of those pedants who insist on writing “MacOS.” I have no idea what they are trying to prove.
