Blockchain!

We actually had a branding consultant come into our office and tell us that the future of websites was blockchain-based!

Yes, and become an expert in security (filesystem, network and databases especially), in accessibility, performance and optimization (especially caching), content searching.

Oh, and your solution should be expandable to seamlessly handle e-commerce, calendaring, blogs, forums, email, producing and consuming RSS and Atom feeds, allow OAuth/Google/Facebook authentication.

It should allow different layouts and menus on every page, if desired. It should be able to run headless, so that you can throw an Angular front-end on it. It should handle multiple websites with the same codebase. Give me an easy way to import and export data. And make it user-friendly so Brenda in Marketing can update our pages, including uploading images and embedding videos.

I've been a developer at the early days of a custom CMS, and it was ugly, very ugly.

There is a reason that CMSs exist, and not just because people are lazy, but because any one of the things I mentioned above is very hard to do right. Keeping up with changes in technology and evolving security risks is a full-time job for a bunch of people. To do all of it together is really, really hard and the reason that yesterday's security alert exists.

A very good book that discusses the problems behind the blind implementation of algorithms is Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil.

It would be interesting to see if they could use an alternative.

I've just (a few minutes ago) finished the second of Stephen Clarke's books about an Englishman living in France: A Year in the Merde, and Merde Actually.

They are a somewhat-less-than-usually-starry-eyed view of life in France for the expat. He turns some phrases wonderfully, and there are a few laugh-out-loud moments.

About 400 pages each, but large type so they are quick reads.

I am skeptical of most chiropractors, but not all. My SO was having terrible problems with her shoulder, and two members of my family who are doctors independently recommended a chiropractor in the town where they practice. He has worked as a trainer for five Olympic teams (including one of the Canadian teams in Rio).

She went to one appointment with him and after some excruciating poking and prodding, she immediately improved the movement in her shoulder. Three more appointments, and her shoulder has been close to normal for over a year. He didn't try to sell her anything or get her to make a series of appointments. He also didn't spout any nonsense about aligning her spine or "subluxations".

He also treated a local surgeon who had been suffering crippling back pain, and had consulted experts in Canada and the U.S. with no success, even after surgery. He saw Alban a few times and within 6 months was back to training for marathons and triathlons.

So some of these guys are the real deal, you just have to find them.

When looking at the Knoppix site, I noticed that Knoppix live CDs/DVDs have a feature where at bootup you can run Ariadne, a customized version of Knoppix especially for visually handicapped users (e.g. built-in screen reader). This sounds incredibly useful for people who are often overlooked.

I installed Mint for my parents (both mid-80s, completely non-techy), mainly because we then didn't have to worry about viruses and other security issues. They have been fine with it for over a year. My uncle (mid-70s but an engineer) visited and saw it, then installed it on his old laptop and was delighted to find it useable. He has been evangelizing it to others.

I also talked my ex (severely non-techy) through installing it on her Windows Vista laptop and she loves how much faster startup and shutdown are. She installed it while I guided her over the phone and English isn't her first language, so that shows how easy it is. Working out how to enable Japanese input was a bit harder, but by that point I was remoted into the machine using TeamViewer and we eventually figured out how.

Except that a former Norwegian Prime Minister with a diplomatic passport was detained at Dulles Airport because he had visited Iran in his official capacity.

No one is actually safe from these buffoons, encouraged by the buffoon-in-chief.

I loved special effects, and was very disappointed when, in every single episode, they re-used the footage of a Viper (space fighter) blowing up a Cylon ship and flying through the explosion. Every single episode!

Funny thing is, look where Trump's people are keeping their emails!

Alternative facts

I'm not going to defend her. She is a creature of big finance and big business. She is a power broker and doesn't hesitate to lie if she thinks it will be to her advantage.

On the other hand, she is extremely intelligent, hard-working, and has vast experience on both the national and international stages.

Dear God, just on the basis of not starting a global thermonuclear war, I don't see how anyone could prefer Donald Trump as the leader of the mightiest country the planet has ever seen.

What a poisonous thing to say.

I'm not the OP, but I am saying "Fuck..." as a Canadian who wished to see the US continue to be healthy and have a positive relationship with the rest of the world.

Instead, I see its government being taken over by a President who has demonstrably and repeatedly lied, who continues to control his financial empire while preventing his countrymen from seeing what exactly comprises that empire, who is unapologetically and thoroughly indulging in nepotism.

I see an executive that is made up of the richest, most powerful people of any cabinet in history, who have no need to change the economic and social policies because they, more than anyone else, have benefitted from the existing policies and therefore see no need to alter them to allow anyone else access to wealth.

I see a government that refuses to use science or evidence as a basis for its decisions, but glorifies ignorance and mocks education.

I see more attention being given to racial/cultural differences within the U.S., at a time when it finally looked like you were going to start moving past that bullshit.

To be entirely honest, I think that historians will look back and see that this election marked the beginning of the decline of the American Empire, with its government completely captured by the plutocracy and sound decision-making giving way to bombast, uninformed emotionalism, and slavish attention to soundbites and Tweets.