ASLinglish

I wanted to talk about how lately I've been signing more often while at home with my partner. I'm encouraging her to take her time and respond back to the best of her ability (which isn't terrible, I must say). Taught myself to verbalize English while signing (what is known as 'Contact signing') for the benefit of people who couldn't sign around me; now I mostly sign "voice-off". I'll break the rule at home, obviously.

A downside happens when I'm talking and a response is required: if it's an off-the-cuff thing, I tend to sign them without verbalizing. Additionally, while typing text, I'll use ASL shorthand for things that people who aren't part of a signing community wouldn't know anything about. Whoops?

Civilization

"Late stage capitalism" is the phrase used to describe the current situation in our "civilized" society.  I disagree, there's little that's civilized about it.

Allowing people to suffer from disease and famine & shrugging it off as "they did it to themselves", or "lazy" is NOT civilized - in fact it's barbaric.

Stripping the planet of resources in the name of profit is irresponsible.

We are in a crappy timeline and the people to blame are the 1%, not immigrants or the commonwealth.

ACO

A recurring thought I've had regard the Accessibility Ontario Act - we need a compliance officer in order for this law to have any teeth.

Under the AODA, the deputy minister has the power to appoint inspectors. The inspector’s job is to see if persons and organizations are meeting the accessibility standards and/or complying with the Act and its regulations.

The AODA lists all of the activities that an inspector can carry out to determine if the organization is complying with a standard. For example, inspectors can make an inspection at any time during regular business or daylight hours. They have the power to ask for anything or speak with anyone about anything that relates to the inspection. They may also ask someone who has expert knowledge on a topic (e.g., an architect) to help with an inspection.

An inspector can also apply to a justice of the peace to issue a search warrant if it is needed.

It is an offence for anyone to try to prevent an inspection in accordance with a search warrant, refuse to answer questions, provide false or misleading information, or deliberately not give information during the course of an inspection [PART IV, sections 18 – 20]. Source Link:

Underwhelming

 

In the film "Stand By Me", there is a dramatic scene where the boys are crossing the bridge, when halfway through that, the train is coming & they're panicking, the train whistle is blowing, they're facing certain death! The caption simply reads:

[Choo]

It's not only underwhelming for the tension created by the scene, it's also fucking hilarious.
 

The Enchilada Song

♪ If you like Enchiladas
A little Pollo & some beans ♫

#MisheardLyrics 

Lineage Mint

 

The last couple of weeks have culminated in blowing away my Windows 10 partition on my PC; and also updating Lineage OS on my Pixel 5. 

I've used Linux off and on the last 30 years, most recently settling on Linux Mint. It was a pleasant experience compared to some hairy installs I've had in the past - however, most distros have come a long way since the late 90s to be fair, not just those based on Ubuntu or Debian.

The Pixel 5 situation was a bit of a chore, since the Updater still doesn't handle upgrades between Android versions yet. So I hunkered down with the documents and made sure I understood the steps, since I really needed this phone to JUST WORK. I'm happy to report it's now on Android 14 AOSP/Lineage OS 21, with the MINDTHEGapps package included.

It's been an interesting sort of long open source week-end. I don't think I'd enjoy doing this every week, but it's been rewarding.