Month: March 2025

On Reading Orbital Operations by Warren Ellis

Writer Warren Ellis publishes a weekly newsletter called “Orbital Operations” and I do recommend it, if you have any interest in writing, reading, comics, the wider world at large. It offers a small window into the creative mind of a writer who has been involved in a number of multi-facted projects, ranging from traditional story-telling and comics (“NORMAL”, “Transmetropolitan”), televisions (“Castelvania”) and radio drama podcasts (“The Department of Midnight).

Here’sa referral link to get the newsletter, every Sunday:

https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=FhPBjOzXlm 

… and here’s a recent image to amuse in the meantime!

Université de Montréal publishes travel guidelines for students, staff heading to the U.S.

Quoting part of the story so my friends can read it on Facebook — due to the spat the Zuck has with the Canadian government, it isn’t possible to directly link to “real” news stories. Which is pretty interesting as to what their algo defines as a “news story”.

“Université de Montréal has issued a series of guidelines to students and staff who will be travelling to the United States for academic purposes.

Rector Daniel Jutras says the guidelines were issued on Thursday in response to numerous questions from students and staff about U.S. travel concerns amid a number of reports of detentions and denial of entry into that country in recent weeks.

Jutras says while there’s no specific incident involving the university community, it felt the need to respond to concerns raised.

The university advises students and staff to tell the institution when they are travelling and discuss potential risks before leaving to the U.S.”

Link to the full article here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/udem-guidelines-travel-to-u-s-1.7497089?cmp=rss

Bird Flu Rising

Must give us pause…

Bird flu continues to quietly (?) evolve and remain a concern to be watched carefully. Mutations are happening quickly.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-bird-flu-virus-is-mutating-fast-and-scientists-say-our-vaccines-may-not-be-enough/

It is mutating quite rapidly and there is concern that it might become human-human transmittable.

Data, Information, Knowledge, etc.,

Raw data => Structured data => Information => Knowledge => Wisdom

The levels of pretense from certain composers, talking about new collections of sound samples, is breath-taking — as well as depressing. Of course, marketing only feeds the fetish and GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) plays its part in the process.

We are constantly searching for the new, the novel, the not-heard or seen before.

But the hyperbole about the “spaciest synth of all” — is it really necessary? I am increasingly inclined to applaud the “No talking, just the samples” videos that showcase the newest sound libraries.

#GetOffMyLawn #YourMusicSux #ProveMeWrong

But here’s an image to amuse you in the meantime:

05AOUT2021 bb.

In the interest of sharing…

Facebook has some rules about sharing what it deems to be news sources, when posting from Canada.

In the interest of sharing information widely concerning the clampdown being experienced in the US by the current regime, I am sharing an URL from The Guardian UK concerning the recent denial of entry of a French researcher in to the US so that my friends on FB can access it freely…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-french-scientist-detained

.. et voilá!