Category: General

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🌿 Ethical Wildlife Photography: A Guide 📸

This is a vibrant and fantastical illustration showing a photographer, kneeling with their camera on a tripod, capturing the serene beauty of an enchanted forest. The scene is drenched in sunlight filtering through the canopy, illuminating an array of flora and fauna. Several species of animals are depicted in harmony, including deer, rabbits, foxes, hedgehogs, and various birds, some in flight and others perched by the water. The flowing creek adds a sense of tranquility, with fish visible beneath the surface. This magical setting is bursting with color, from the lush green trees to the richly colored flowers and moss-covered stones. Butterflies flit in the air, adding to the fairytale ambiance. The composition invokes a sense of wonder and the richness of untouched nature through ethical photography.

The Ontario Parks blog post discusses the importance of ethical wildlife photography, highlighting seven common issues photographers should avoid, such as baiting wildlife, trampling off-trail, damaging habitats, introducing non-native species, unsafe roadside manners, following wildlife too closely, and using recordings to attract animals. It emphasizes respect for nature and the need to minimize impact while capturing the beauty of wildlife and landscapes, encouraging photographers to practice responsible behavior to protect the environment and its inhabitants.

Read more here.

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New Custom GPT: Find Keywords – A Powerful Tool for Content Analysis

New Custom GPT: Find Keywords

I’ve created a new Custom GPT that will reduce text to just the keywords. The GPT is named Find Keywords and can be found at https://chat.openai.com/g/g-mL985wIE7-find-keywords.

Note that it requires a subscription to ChatGPT Plus. Unfortunately, OpenAI does not offer trial subscriptions, and subscriptions cost $20 USD per month. Personally, I find the subscription well worth it for both personal programming projects and for personal productivity.

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Using AI Chatbots to Solve my Pixel 7 Pro Charging Problem

A Pixel 7 Pro smartphone is displayed on a wireless charging pad, not charging, indicated by a visible red cross or question mark on the screen. In the background, various AI chatbot icons are depicted in speech bubbles, each providing different pieces of advice or troubleshooting steps. The setting is tech-focused, with a lighthearted yet informative tone, highlighting the diversity of AI assistance in solving technical issues.

My Pixel 7 Pro phone decided to stop charging wirelessly. I think I’ve exhausted any logical troubleshooting ideas I have so decided to turn the problem over to some AI chatbots before I bring the phone back to Telus while it’s still under warranty.

Following is a comparison of the different AI chatbots I used. As part of my troubleshooting prompt, it was important that the solution cite any sources that is uses. My prompt was….

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The Donkey and the Tiger

The image is a colorful, detailed illustration depicting a whimsical scene. A donkey, anthropomorphized and dressed in green traditional Indian attire, appears to be in an intense conversation with a lion, who is roaring back. A tiger, wearing a turban and blue attire, sits nearby, observing the exchange. The setting is outdoors, with lush green grass and a green curtain hanging from above. In the background, there’s a silhouette of an elaborate building structure resembling Indian architecture. The sky is bright with scattered clouds, suggesting it’s either dawn or dusk.

I’m not sure what the original source is of fable this, but in light of the political bickering that seems to be pervasive nowadays, I thought it was worth sharing here. Thanks to my friend Doug for making me aware of it on Facebook, and thanks of course to the original author.!

The donkey told the tiger, “The grass is blue.”

The tiger replied, “No, the grass is green .”

The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.

Continue reading “The Donkey and the Tiger”
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Ten Things I Learned – December 5, 2023 Update

April Wine

I was sad to hear of Myles Goodwyn‘s death. Myles was the lead singer of April Wine, a Canadian band that had quite an influence on my musical tastes.

WordPress

Want to your open WordPress links in a new tab as the default? “External Links in New Window / New Tab” is your solution.

Speed Test

Google has a speed test webpage. (I’ve added it to my Google A-Z page.)

Continue reading “Ten Things I Learned – December 5, 2023 Update”
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Quick Encryption/Decryption Utility

lock on keyboard

Need a quick program to encrypt or decrypt small amounts of text, such as passwords? Here’s a quick utility I wrote in Python using Google Colab, Google’s implementation of Jupyter Notebooks. You can run the program there or copy it to your own Google Drive first. Note that you’ll need a Google account to access it.

https://bit.ly/beens-encrypt

I personally use this utility to encrypt sensitive information in Google Keep, as shown in the screenshot below. I save the URL of the utility with the encrypted text so I can decrypt it quickly.

(For longer notes, I’d honestly recommend a proper password manager that can encrypt notes. I use the Premium version of Bitwarden, which I highly recommend.)

The instructions in the program should be adequate to run it on your own.

Bookmark it in your browser for quick access! (Ctrl-D on your PC or Command-D on your Mac)

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Hey ChatGPT, When Should I Take CPP?

Stacks of coins, growing from small to large, with plants growing out of each of them.

I’ve seen all sorts of test cases for ChatGPT, with some responses being good and some bad. Just for the heck of it, I thought I would ask it for some serious financial advice:

With $xx in an RRSP and a current pension of $yy per month, when is the best time to take CPP? I am zz years old.

The answer was amazingly insightful, and pretty much matched up with my own thoughts.

Screenshot of ChatGPT output.
Click image to enlarge

If you’re in a similar situation, why not give ChatGPT a shot and see what it recommends. Remember though that it’s free advice, and shouldn’t be acted upon without a good knowledge of your financial situation and perhaps corroborating advice from your personal banker.

Your thoughts? Would you trust this advice?

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models and has been fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.

ChatGPT is available at https://chat.openai.com.

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Looking for Microsoft Office for Just $49?

I received an email this morning from Koingo Software, a company I first purchased from in 2008. They’ve now branched out into selling software deals, many of which are quite good.

The deal that I want to share today is Microsoft Office Professional 2021, for both Mac and Windows. These are not subscriptions, they are a one-time purchase of $49.99.

The regular price is $349, so this is a great deal.

You can purchase the Windows version here and the Mac version here.

I’m not sure how long this deal lasts so you may want to act fast.

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How to Identify a Spam Message

Spammers just aren’t very smart.

I received a phone call from a friend concerned that her credit card was being charged for an antivirus program she no longer used. I asked her who the email was from and she replied it was from a cryptic Gmail account. No reputable business would send customers emails from a Gmail account. Yes, some small companies might use Gmail, but certainly not companies like McAfee or Norton.

Coincidentally, here’s an email I received a day or two after my friend. There were so many red flags I thought it would be interesting to share.

Click to enlarge

If you ever get an email you are unsure about, look for these giveaways:

  • Did it come from an email address associated with the company? If not, it’s likely spam.
  • Does it hype up the email with exclamation marks, use of bold lettering, or all-caps? If so, it’s likely spam.
  • Is the email sent directly to you or did you receive it because it was bcc’d (blind carbon copy) to you? If it was bcc’d to you, it’s likely spam.
  • Lastly, is the formatting professional? If not, it’s likely spam.

Are there any dead giveaways I’ve missed? If so, let me know in the comments below!