Time Change

I had an early start this morning and I totally forgot the time change.

I checked the time on my phone just to confirm how early it was. The automatic time change on phones is a lifesaver. I even have an analog clock in my office that handles it automatically.

But I had that moment when I looked at the non-updating clock on our stove. How the heck did I lose that extra hour...

Oddly enough, Daylight Saving Time started close to home for me. Today I learned that Port Arthur, one of the cities that was later amalgamated to form my home town of Thunder Bay, Ontario, was the first city in the world to adopt it.

This clears up a mystery from my childhood. I was raised on the Fort William ¹ side, and my family was very proud of it. My mom talked about the time when Port Arthur was in a different (and therefore wrong) time zone.

When the original time change happened, both Fort William and Port Arthur sprang forward, but Port Arthur didn't spring back. Fort William did, so for five months it was probably very confusing if you had an appointment in the other city.

They schedule time changes at 2 a.m. so most sleep through it. However, I had a bit of a career working in Alarm Monitoring Centers. They have to run 24 hours a day, so you have to work your share of nights.

I worked weekends when I was a student during the week, alternating days and nights. so I got to observe time changes first hand. It's kind of a strange experience, expecially working in a place where everything is time stamped.

When it springs forward, you just have an empty, non-existent hour. But when it falls back, you have to loop back through that hour again.

So, I've always been facinated with time changes. But given the distruption to people's lives, I don't think the are a great policy. In 2020, Ontario passed the Time Amendment Act which officially moves the province to permanant daylight savings time. The date this is implemented was left blank, to be announced by the Lieutenant Governor. This is to ensure that we align with Québec and New York State. But maybe we want to just do it on our own.

These time changes always mess me up.

1. As an aside, see this post for my thoughts on the names of Fort William and Port Arthur. ↩︎

On Missing the Obvious

When I was growing up it took me way too long to realize that Fort William was named that because the location of the North-West Company fort was in that city.

I never realized that because the Fort William Historical Park is nowhere near there. In a location that makes no sense for a trading post.

And because Fort William was a North-West Company trading post, their big corporate rival the Hudson's Bay Company never opened one of their big stores in Thunder Bay. I don't know for sure, but I have always assumed it is because of a very longstanding corporate grudge.

Well, the HBC is basically dead now. So they can just suck it.

Similarly, I never realized that Port Arthur was named that way because the port is there.

Achievement Unlocked: Bike Ride in November

It was a short trip down to the library, but it counts!

Alligator (1980)

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween, I thought I'd post about a horror movie I've watched. I had a subscription to Shudder in our house for awhile, and one fun thing to watch is the various shows that describe old horror movies. I've added a lot of old horror movies to my to-be-watched list.

Alligator is basically about the urban legend that if you flush a baby pet alligator down the toilet, it will grow very big. This even happens once to Grampa Simpson.

The movie takes a different turn with the addition of corporate toxic waste. I love the idea of a movie where the municipal government struggles to handle a monster. And the best part is there are political reasons why can't handle this particular monster.

The best part of the movie, of course, is when the alligator messes up the rich folks party. It's in a very 1970s class war spirit.

Robert Forster (1941-2019) does good work here as a cop no one wants to work with because he keeps losing partners. And they aren't wrong not to want to work with him.

Apparently they released a board game based on the movie. Who wouldn't want to play this game?

Chaos Day

You know the kind of day when nothing goes quite right?

I sometimes think of it in Tabletop Role-Playing Game terms: You roll so badly, you are going to get a penalty to all your rolls going forward.

Then thank makes you mess up the next roll, then the next. Pretty soon you can't do anything.

If I look at it objectively, it's not quite that bad. But in the moment, it feels quite demoralizing.

That said, there were some genuine moments of awesomeness today. Quite a few people went out of their way to help me out today. I'm extremely grateful for that. That said, there were some genuine moments of awesomeness today. Quite a few people went out of their way to help me out today. I'm extremely grateful for that.

Anyway, I wanted to keep my blog posting streak going. See you tomorrow.

Last updated November 1, 2025.

Hello World!

As you can see from my posting history, I've managed to keep this blog actively recently. I've been able to post at least once a day for over a week now.

Granted, that isn't much of an achievement. This blog is a random collection of things that interest me. But since I don't have any commercial or other purpose (aside from getting me to do some writing) I think I'm in pretty good shape.

I can't really tell how many readers I actually have either. I don't run any website analytics on this site, though I do log basic information from requests to the web server.

The logs mostly tell me that my site is under attack constantly. Attackers scan for access to WordPress control panels that aren't installed. I'm sure most of the requests come from AI scrapers and other bots.

Anyway, if you are a genuine reader of this blog, please reach out. I have provided a contact form for the purpose. I also have my social media networks at the top of the page, please follow me there. If you see something interesting, let me know.

But really, at the end of the day this blog is for me. It is my deliberate writing practice. It might change over time, become more focused. Only time will tell.

Process JSON with jq

I grabbed some JSON using the Github API. I wanted to filter it with jq

The -C option of jq keeps the colour control codes and the -R option to less uses those codes..

List all the records in the JSON file:

jq -C '[.[]]' github_repos.json | less -R

List all the unique values for the visibility property:

jq '[.[] | .visibility] | unique' github_repos.json

List all the records where visibility is private:

jq -C '[.[] | select(.visibility == "private")]' github_repos.json | less -R

Sort the records by updated date (reversed):

jq -C 'sort_by(.updated_at) | reverse | [.[]]' github_repos.json | less -R

Sort the records where visibility is private by updated date (reversed):

jq -C 'sort_by(.updated_at) | reverse | [.[] | select(.visibility == "private")]' github_repos.json | less -R

Finch West LRT

From the Ontario Newsroom:

The Ontario government has successfully completed Revenue Service Demonstration (RSD) for the Finch West Light Rail Transit (LRT), marking a significant milestone in the province’s plan to bring 230,000 more people within walking distance of fast and reliable transit. With the final 30-day “dry run” complete, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) will assume full operational control of the line no later than November 3, 2025, with an opening date to be determined by the TTC as it trains staff and prepares to launch the new light rail service for the public.

This is the second time I've worked at a post-secondary institution that has been hooked up to the TTC's rail network. The new TTC Line 6 Finch West LRT will have a stop right at Humber Polytechnic. The station, however, has not kept up with Humber's name change and is still called Humber College station.

I'm looking forward to riding on the line. I got to ride on the TTC Line 1 extension to Vaughn, which I was very excited about. That extension made my commute to York so much better.

The Finch West LRT won't impact my current commute unless they extend it to the Woodbine GO Station. I'm really hoping that happens.

Personally, I don't think I will use it very often. But it does connect Humber's North campus to TTC's Line 1 by rail. That will be a big benefit for students and everyone else coming to Humber's campus. I am looking forward to doing an analysis of it.

Secure File Transfer

When you run surveys or you analyze the data from surveys, you really do appreciate when your colleagues or vendors provide process and technical information. I treasure those manuals and they have saved me quite a bit of frustration over the years.

You can't rely on them 100%, which means you do need to communicate well with the rest of the project team.

The manuals are often written in a particular language, which provides the technical details for people who aren't from a technical background.

One of my favourite bits is something like the following:

The files will be transferred to you by a secure transfer protocol.

This suggests to me that someone has a binder with a list of steps to transfer the files. Which seems a lot more interesting than saying they will use SFTP.

I can only assume there is a bit of a game of telephone between the people who set up the technology and the authors of the document (or their bosses). It's not wrong exactly, but it definitely feels a bit off.

And I have discovered that instead of SFTP they sometimes mean regular FTP over SSH. I didn't know that was actually a thing until recently.

Anyway, I am glad they put the secure in there as the idea that you would use FTP to move survey data always worries me. Just like sending that stuff via email, but that's another story.

Last updated October 26, 2025.

Furious (1984)

Decades ago, I sat down with a friend to watch a movie. A martial arts movie, in fact. Even though it wasn't really my favorite genre at the time. This friend has worked at multiple video stores, back when video stores were a thing. He was perfectly suited to that job as he is gregarious (and sometimes garrulous), obsessed with movies and possessed of an excellent and slightly off-kilter taste. And yes, he did go to film school.

His pitch for this movie was that they build a whole dragon head and it's only in the movie for less than 30 seconds. Naturally I had to watch it.

I never forgot that movie, but what I did forget (almost immediately) was the TITLE. For decades, I tried to figure out what this movie was. It never quite reached the level of obsession, but it would be something I would try to search for every once in awhile.

There are some very specific elements in this movie: the chicken wizard, the aforementioned dragon head, the astral plane right. But none of these availed me in my search until recently.

Then I found this post and I immediately knew I had found the movie. I'm so grateful for that post, as it has answered a question that has dogged me for decades.

I watched it with my partner the other night and it was a lot of fun. The story is mostly an excuse to have lots of fights--but there is amazing stuff in those fights. They have some really great outdoor locations for duals and group fights. There's a nice big fight on a wooden bridge that lets them show off the use of different weapons.

They also make good use of a helicopter to take full advantage of the Southern California scenery.

But the stuff that really made it stick in my mind all these years is the wired stuff. I already mentioned the wizard and all the chickens. There are guys who just might be aliens and they have a band. And yes, there is a post-credits scene!

We found it streaming on Tubi and it has less than a 90 minute runtime. It was great to watch it again after so long. I'm so glad I finally got to re-watch a movie that I have been thinking of on and off for ages!