A blog by Keith Soltys. Things that interest me.
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Styles are one of Microsoft Word's better features but Microsoft has never made them particularly easy to use and especially never easy to manage. In my last job, I eventually created a small set of templates with a common set of style names but with differing formats. Some documents could have more than thirty styles. Tracking changes to the styles across differnt documents was painful. Office…
The Nieman Journalism Lab has published an article showing how several Pulitizer Prize-winning journalists used AI tools in their work. A translation of a mass shooter’s cryptic journal in the days after an attack. A public records review that revealed failures to install flood warning systems in Central Texas. An exposé of American technology companies’ complicity in building the Chinese…
This week's photo is of our garlic harvest for the year. It wasn't our best; we got 30 heads out of about 36 planted, and they were mostly on the small side. Still, it's not a lot of work and they taste better than most of the supermarket garlic. Our garlic harvest for 2026
This week's musical treat is from Girma Woldemichael, an Ethiopian-Canadian saxophonist living in Toronto. I was completely unfamiliar with him or his music until hearing an interview with him on CBC radio. His music synthesizes African elements with jazz, and funk and I quite like it. Nafqóté is his most recent album. You can find several more on YouTube Music .
Recently, I read an article by Charlie Angus: What Keeps Me Up at Night . In it he says: We are like the three little pigs hanging out in a straw house. The war in Iran, climate fires across North America and Europe, the political chaos of Trump — would be a serious test of global resilience at the best of times. But now these issues are beginning to lay across each other like terrible ley lines.…
The winners of the 2026 Aurora Awards for the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy were announced last weekend. These are the fiction winners. Novel: The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine , Robert J. Sawyer YA Novel: Breath of the Dragon , Fonda Lee & Shannon Lee Novelette/Novella: The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar Short Story: “The Stone Played at Tengen”, R.H. Wesley Graphic…
Last week, I had to be up in North Toronto so I took a ride on the new Eglinton LRT. I got off the bus on the southeast corner of Avenue Road and Eglinton but had to cross to the northwest corner to get to the LRT station. I was surprised at how deep it is, nine flights of stairs or five escalators to the platform level. The train cars are more like streetcars than subway cars. I didn't think the…
This week's photo is of the marina at the foot of Liverpool Road. I should have taken a picture of the excellent ice cream cone I had just before taking this picture. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro and unedited. The marina at sunset.
I recently broke down and subscribed to YouTube Premium because the ads were getting too annoying. A subscription to YouTube Music Premium was also included, and I've been browsing through the music library. So today, here are three recent albums of Philip Glass's music and one special treat. (YouTube Music doesn't allow embeds so I'm just providing links to the albums). Einstein on the Beach :…
Short reviews of movies and TV shows I watched in July. Movies Remarkably Bright Creatures : A quirky romantic drama featuring Sally Field and octopuses. We liked it a lot. (Netflix) Enola Holmes (1 - 3): A wildly implausible but entertaining series of movies featuring a teenage sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Light but well made. (Netflix) Afterburn: Half the Earth gets hit by a super…
