Category: Random Thoughts (Page 1 of 16)

If 2023 was a bit back to normal, then 2024 was the complete opposite.

The tagline would be ‘Thank goodness for universal health care’ as the year was dominated by it.

(Buckle up – this is a doozy)

Alicia had a fall in late March resulting in the skin above her kneecap being ripped away. A hospital stay was needed for that followed by skin graft surgery and another hospital stay in July. Post-surgery she was still having balance issues with “micro blackouts” causing her to fall. This resulted in several more ER visits. We suspected some sort of drug imbalance with her various meds.

In late October she had another fall and they decided to admit her to try and get to the bottom of the issues. Several days later she started experiencing severe pain in her stomach area. She was rushed into emergency surgery where they found a perforated bowel.

She was sent to the ICU for several days and then was sent up to the general medicine floor. 2 days later she experienced trouble breathing and was sent back down to the ICU for a week. They moved her back upstairs and the same thing happened with her breathing and she was developing a fever – a sign of infection)

She spent 5 weeks in ICU slowly recovering. The third week of December she was well enough to move upstairs and she has been there since then. She is very weak physically and is currently doing physio to strengthen her muscles. There are still some underlying health issues her team is trying to solve.

Longer term we think (hope) she will end up in the physio program at Parkwood to help her to become mobile again but that is still up in the air. I’m at home with 3 cats who miss her greatly and try to help me with the household chores.

My own health has been better this year and I continue to loose some weight. (I’m sure some of it is stress related!) I find I don’t have as much energy as I used to pre heart attack.  In my role at the LHSC Help Desk I am fortunate enough to be able to work from home so I can take care of the cats for lunch during the day. At night I make the journey up to UH to spend a few hours with Alicia.

We don’t know what 2025 will bring but we are hopeful that it will be better than 2024.

I’ve been playing a bit of catch up the last week or so on the whole rise of AI, and I have to agree with Bill Gates and others – Much like the GUI, the internet and mobile devices, it is a game changer.

Bill Gates has a good long read on his current thoughts about the state of AI and where it could go. The read is worth your time and will give you some things to think about.

At the same time, the world needs to establish the rules of the road so that any downsides of artificial intelligence are far outweighed by its benefits, and so that everyone can enjoy those benefits no matter where they live or how much money they have. The Age of AI is filled with opportunities and responsibilities.

Now if we can only get the world on board.

M.G. Siegler points to a Macrumors piece about a foldable iPad

https://mgs.blog/on-the-latest-ipad-fold-rumors-bd4e0c3a076d

To say I’m interested in what Apple might do in the “foldable” space would seem to be an understatement. I just did a quick search and realized I’ve written on this topic over a half dozen times in the past few years.¹ Originally to — rightfully so — crap on Samsung’s comical first attempt at such a product. More recently, I latched on to Microsoft’s odd Surface Duo — a great hinge in search of a product. And thanks in part to those two, Apple has been rumoured to be entering the space for some time. But the timing has always been in question

Like other new ideas, there are the comments of people saying “I don’t see a need for it” but I remember similar comments about the first tablets that came out. I’m not a heavy tablet user other than reading but I know people that use them almost exclusively. Will some extra screen real estate work? Microsoft has been teasing a surface foldable with the same idea.

Years ago I wrote the perfect machine for me would be a light/thin laptop like a Macbook Air that would also plug into a dock providing a high-end GPU. I’ve heard others mention an iPad that runs OSX. That would be an interesting combination as well.

What a wonderful world we live in techwise…..