The Musings of Levi Breederland
Encrypted Messenger Showdown
Nota bene: While I wrote this over a year ago and some things have changed, the end result — and the three “winners” — remains the same. I still use all three on a regular basis.
For the longest time, my parents, siblings, wife, and I had a group conversation in iMessage, which helped bridge the hundreds of kilometers between us. It was great. We could arrange times for video calls, share 20 pictures of a random event, brag about how one’s weather was better than the other’s, and other similarly family-like things that are normal to talk about. It was great because it was a simple process to set up, a platform we were already using, and was decently secure for those of us who care about that sort of thing.
But then my sister went and got a Samsung phone.
Optimize Joomla's Loading Speed
There are many variables when it comes to how fast a webpage will load, and most of them are out of the developer's hands. Thankfully, there are a few things we can do to optimize how the page is delivered to the user, speed up the whole browsing process, and also use less bandwidth.
Brain Surgery Anniversary Day!
Leading up to Mother's Day, 2011, I had a couple small seizures, but no one noticed or witnessed them, so I didn't really realize what was happening. On Mother's Day, I was helping make brunch for my mom (of course), and had another seizure. This time, people noticed. I went on to have all sorts of tests to see what was triggering them.
Can We Not Copyright Hymns?
A friend tweeted this:
Can we not copyright hymns? pic.twitter.com/zeIH0vY9T9
— Katy 'Repentant Sinner' Jean (@katynotie) January 17, 2020
While I agree with her sentiment, just saying that I agree with a one-sentence & gif rant doesn’t share my full thoughts, so here they are.
From a secular perspective, it is at least polite for the writers of a piece of music to receive compensation for the use of the song, assuming they want it. Even if it’s just to encourage more music to be composed, the writers should be fairly rewarded for their work in some way. After all, we wouldn’t want a talented songwriter to not have the time to sit at their piano because they are busy doing other things to put bread on the table.
There's nothing wrong with an artist saying, “You have to pay me to use my song at your event”, though usually they don’t say it directly and use the help of a licensing body like Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI). Most parishes and venues that I’ve been to have some form of blanket license that they pay an annual fee for, allowing them to use the songs they want without having to get explicit permission for each one.
This is a decent solution, balancing the work to get permission with what is probably a lesser amount of funding going to the artists than if they were to license tracks individually. Obviously, it doesn’t prevent a “bad actor” like an overcontrolling record label from taking a larger cut than they should and paying the artist in literal peanuts, but that’s another complicated problem for a different article.
Assuming that a person performing a musical work is doing so within the permissions given by the licensing body, both the necessity of politeness and a Christian’s moral obligations could be deemed fulfilled. But there is another angle.
A Crash Course on Kombucha
I love kombucha.
Several years ago, I became interested in it, but rarely bought it, as it's in that category of pricey, cool products that are too expensive for this Dutch guy to buy. I mentioned, off-handedly, to my wife once that I wanted to try and make some myself, but never really did anything until Christmas of 2015. That year, we decided to challenge ourselves into trying to find heartfelt gifts for each other with a $10 price limit. I bought her some earthy cosmetics and loose-leaf tea, and she bought me the supplies to start making my own kombucha.
An Introduction to No Agenda
No Agenda is a great show, but it's biggest downside is the fact that so many of the stories discussed are long and ongoing, making it hard for a first-time listener to jump in. That's why Adam and John did episode 200.5. It was meant to be an introduction to how the show works and all the little peculiarities.
Cold-Brewed Coffee
Friends who've asked me what cold-brew is, how to make it, or if it's easy: this is for you.
I first learned about cold-brewed coffee from author Cory Doctorow's book, Homeland. Simply put, it's coffee that is made the same way one makes cold-brewed iced tea (by leaving the leaves in cold water for a long period of time, rather than in hot water for a short period of time). As Cory puts it, it's "cheap, easy, no-mess", and "the best cup of coffee you're likely to drink this summer".
Why You Should Listen to No Agenda
If we've talked in person, I've probably mentioned the No Agenda Show. With it's unique blend of humour, news, food and media recommendations, and political commentary, all packaged up in one of the best forms of media, it really is the perfect show.
Don't Buy a “Smart” TV
Here’s why you shouldn’t buy a smart TV even if you don't care at all about the privacy worries.
My Future Alarm Clock
For me, and a lot of people that I've talked to, the most difficult part of waking up in the morning is getting out of bed. Being able to just reach over and snooze — or completely turn off — the alarm and fall back asleep is just too easy.
A very common solution to the issue is place one's alarm clock on the far side of the room, so they have to get out of bed to turn it off. This works rather well, as long as you have the self-control to not just climb back in bed. This is what I currently do, but I have a better plan (and it doesn't involve buying a clock that runs/flies/hides or something silly like that).
Ways People Ruin Their Websites
People break websites so easily. A very large portion of websites, especially for small businesses and organizations, are managed by people who don't have much experience with the technology or industry standards. Thanks to modern systems like Squarespace, it’s very easy to produce something that’s good enough for most people’s standards, but that also creates the possibility of breaking things.
If you can't hire a professional to build or maintain your website in a way that keeps it top-notch and better than your competition, here are some of the things to watch out for while working on your web presence.
Advertising
"Advertising is the very essence of democracy." — Anton Chekhov
I came across that quote because of my least-favourite form of marketing: using Twitter to follow individuals, then unfollowing them, hoping that they followed you back. (It's pretty much the equivalent of a pump-and-dump scheme, but that's for another blog post.) Trying to find the source, I also came across a more recent author who said the same thing, but I was unable to find the original context.
Reasons Why I Live in the Edmonton Area
To contest my sister, who wants me to move back to Metro Vancouver, I've compiled this list of reasons why I'd rather live in the Edmonton area. (Not how I got here, but why I don't want to leave).
Why Is Piracy Always Fined so Much?
This week an Irish man was handed a four-year sentence for running a pirate linking site. The Court accepted that he led no lavish lifestyle. In contrast, a man who stole almost £9m from a bank and bought homes worth £1.4m, three Bentleys, three Aston Martins, a Porsche 911 and a Rolls Royce, was also jailed. He received just 3.5 years. Fair?
Fuel Economy per Hour of Driving
One of the nice things about cars from the last five years is that they keep track of fuel usage and time that the engine runs, and they let the user easily access the information. Based on my last two months of driving, I've driven at an average of 64 km/h, which surprises me. I thought that the amount of idling to warm the car would have brought this down somewhat.
Value for Value
The value-for-value business model, as described by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak on their podcast, No Agenda, seems to be the only truly viable business model for digital media.
The stumbling block that many people seem to have when it comes to content in digital form is that it is very difficult to force people to pay a set price for something that can be perfectly replicated ad infinitum.
If someone is a craftsman and makes eight doohickeys in a normal work day, and two doohickeys are stolen, it's easy to see how someone stole two hours of their time (not to mention supplies, wear on his tools, and a portion of the time developing the concept of the product). But what if the doohickey is a digital file?
Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin
People seem to think that the best way to get noticed on social media is to be active everywhere. It's not.
My Favourite Used Music
It’s weird to think of the idea of “used” music these days. In this age of infinitely replicable digital media files, why would someone move an .mp3 to your device when it can just be copied?
Ninety percent of the music that I own on vinyl was acquired second-hand. There’s a multitude of good artists from years past that not only are still worthy of a listen, but were popular enough that their physical music releases are still easy to find. The fact that many used vinyl records can be bought for as little as one or two dollars at a thrift store means the barrier to entry, and trying a new artist, is very low. Sure, many of the more popular albums will get snatched up by someone reselling them for $10, but it doesn’t hurt to check the vinyl rack at the thrift store on a regular basis and see what they have.
Hello, I'm Levi Breederland.