Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Monthly notable news (W49-52)

December was a super busy month. I barely had time to read or write anything. Every week I had some meetings or appointments. First, I visited the exhibition “Terre d'Asie” (a private collection owned by Sam & Myrna Myers) at the Pointe-à-Caillère museum (held from November 17 to March 19) [Pictures to come soon]. Then there was a team meeting at work (I've learned nothing new there). I also went to a pubic assembly where the head of the city's libraries was presenting an assessment (what was achieved in the last ten years and what they are planning to do in the next five years) to the City's Permanent Commission on culture (made of elected officials). It was quite interesting and I intend to write a lot more about this as soon as I have a little more time. Finally, there was a couple of Christmas parties and a couple of doctors' appointments.

I watched a few movies or TV series (most series had ended their run for the season, but I watched The Crown, about the first years of Elisabeth II reign, Mars docudrama miniseries, about what the first human trip to the red planet could be), a few Christmas Specials (Grantchester, Call the Midwife, Doctor Who, When calls the Heart) and episode two of Maigret. I have also purchased and installed a new exterior Nest Cam and so far it has survived our first big snow storm (15 cm), freezing temperature (-20'C) and even freezing rain. The camera (and particularly the app to operate it) really works great.

The biggest novelty of the month was probably that I finally got fed up with the unfulfilled promises of Videotron's new generation Illico TV (mostly I wanted to watch the BBC in HD and wanted to be able to watch ALL my channels on my iPad). So I've switched to Bell Fibe TV and saved fifty dollars a month! From telephone post to finish the installation took more than six hours! Fibe TV is really great (all HD, greater quality picture, all wi-fi, and the Fibe TV app is totally marvellous). But… Bell's internet is really shit. The wi-fi signal is somewhat weak, the range is limited and it doesn't play well with my Apple Airport Extreme & Express routers, my Primus phone router (calls always drop after ten or fifteen minutes) or everything else that relies on wi-fi (my old ip cameras can't connect, the Nest Cam regularly cuts, even the Nest Thermostat lose contact sometimes!). I hope they'll be able to fix that. The worse is the phone issue (and I am sure they will try very hard to have me switch to their own ip phone instead but they can't match all the services I have with Primus). At the same time I also had lots of iPhone battery troubles. I am looking to have this fixed also [later tonight: went to Apple Store and they replaced the battery: it took three hours! I thought they would just swap the phone not repair it in situ].

I can't believe that 2016 is almost over. Even if I have not been able to write as much as I wanted, I did manage to write a little more than last year. To recap the year, you can check all my press reviews & notable news links for the last year. However, all in all, 2016 was not a good year for me. Hopefully, 2017 will be much better. But, unfortunately, I seriously doubt that.

Despite all this, I still found some time to stay acquainted (a bit) with the affairs of the world. Here's a “few” notable news & links that I came across this month and that I'd like to share with you, after the jump (in no particular order, in both french and english):


Breaking News !


Other notable news


Funnies


Unshelved has ended and was replaced by a new web comic: Library Comic. Here's some sample (click the picture for the full comic):

Library Comic, November 23, 2016

Library Comic, November 24, 2016

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