As Arthur C. Clarke once said about our blue planet: “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.”
A school of fish represents wisdom.
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Art, Essays, and Technology
As Arthur C. Clarke once said about our blue planet: “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.”
A school of fish represents wisdom.
During the pandemic I published, “Me and My Shadow: Social Distancing 2020.” Early on, there was confusion about whether people should go outdoors at all. In this comic, Jay is led outdoors where he encounters shadows in nature, people, and his heart. Shadows are explored on a cosmic level, witnessing a lunar and solar eclipse. The work was originally a limited release of 50 print chapbooks, published under my alias, Jan Andreas. Now on the eve of the eclipse of 2024, I release it as a free e-book.
I was a part-time library school student from 2006-2009, while working a day job for IBM. See, I loved books and had to find a way to mesh it with my lesser love for code to make a living. It was the heyday of Web 2.0 and the library blogging community was on fire. I started book blogging and got picked up by Random House as an “official” blogger, which means little except that I could request a free book from them, with a soft hook to review it.
Book bloggers need to insert book cover images and bibliographic data into their posts. I objected to the idea of always linking to Amazon. I became an open source book coder, creating a WordPress plugin for Open Library. It became a favourite of System Librarians who were experimenting with social catalogs. It had thousands of downloads over ten years and branched into new plugins before I retired it.
This month on my new website I am posting thirty or so of my best book reviews. They range from literature to books on literacy, libraries, and psychology. Others are about technology or physics. A number are about Buddhism. I am also posting them on my new Essays and Reviews Substack to which you can subscribe for free. I invite you to follow along.
In June 2023, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-18, the Online News Act, compelling digital giants, such as Meta and Google, to compensate news publishers for the use of their content. Meta responded to the bill by blocking all news links on Facebook Canada. Google reached a compensation deal with news publishers, and continues to allow access to news on its platform.
Some websites offered workarounds that redirected links, but Facebook blocked them. This website provides a different type of workaround that transforms a news link into a Bing search with only one result. Facebook will not block Bing.
Generate a news link that can be shared on Facebook Canada
Welcome to my new website, featuring my art, essays, and technology. I am updating the site with a retrospective of my best content, before presenting my new material.
Cold water whispers sweet secrets of bliss.
Immersed in the cold water our separateness eases for a time.