Not long ago while driving with my NPR loving wife I was accidentally exposed to a radio panel “conversation”1 about offensive team names. Unless you've been off-planet for the last few decades you're probably aware that it's no longer acceptable to name teams after BIPOC’ky2 people. To do so is to commit the heinous crime … Continue reading Offensive Team Names and GUIDs
Author: John Baker
Professional curmudgeon and relentless skeptic. "Belief" is a bullshit word. You know or you don't know!
Running SSIS Packages with Python
Microsoft's SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) is a ubiquitous ETL (Extract Transform and Load) tool. Despite its widespread use, SSIS is not loved! At best, it's tolerated for its undeniable utility, but SSIS's “utility” comes with a host of hideous warts with the ugliest being its file handling. You would think that an ETL tool … Continue reading Running SSIS Packages with Python
A Brighter Bluer World
Yesterday I had cataract surgery, My cataract-infused left eye lens was removed and replaced with a plastic mono-focal lens. I’m still recovering from the procedure but I can already see that it’s going to be a brighter and bluer world, My cataracts were literally casting a yellowish pall on everything. I knew my color sense … Continue reading A Brighter Bluer World
My Father’s Obituary
The following is an obituary I wrote for my recently deceased father. The original was posted the on the Franzen Davis Funeral Home website. This version incorporates some minor adjustments and corrections that were noted by my brother. Franklin Burdick Baker, age 87, of Las Vegas formerly of Bozeman, died on Tuesday morning February 9th, … Continue reading My Father’s Obituary
New Year New Image Editors
We all have our New Year’s traditions. One of mine is trying out new1 image editors and reevaluating older familiar editors that I've put aside. This year I looked at three editors. Luminar AIPicture Window Pro 8GNU GIMP 2.10.22 Luminar AI Let’s start with Luminar AI. Luminar AI makes the possibly true claim that it’s … Continue reading New Year New Image Editors
Cataract Conjunction Caps Coronavirus Year
Our crappy Coronavirus year wound down with a bright spot: actually, two of them. On the 21st of December 2020, Jupiter and Saturn appeared right beside each other in the early evening southwestern sky. The last time they could be seen this close it was 1226: Notre Dame was still being built and the world … Continue reading Cataract Conjunction Caps Coronavirus Year
Woke Wildfires
For the last two weeks we’ve been inhaling woke, California, Oregon, and Washington, wildfire smoke. Fire season, yeah it’s a season, is an annual “thing” in the Pacific Northwest. Every summer and fall fires break out and ruin air quality for weeks on end. As “nearly 85 percent of wildland fires in the United States … Continue reading Woke Wildfires
Oscars Now as Meaningless as Nobel Peace Prizes
Eons ago, upon learning that Barak Obama, aka the Magic Lightbringer, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing sweet diddly-squat, I rightfully concluded that the Nobel Peace Prize had completed its long embarrassing journey to absolute irrelevance. I opined that frivolous Canadian Idol awards meant more because at least Idol recipients had to … Continue reading Oscars Now as Meaningless as Nobel Peace Prizes
Sinking in Blog Sand
I’ve been refreshing my blog’s look. I created new favicons, blog-banners, and changed my WordPress theme to a simpler and more modern style. I’d really like to harmonize my picture and blog sites, but CSS issues are frustrating me. I have no desire to plunge into the CSS blog sand, but if you care about … Continue reading Sinking in Blog Sand
JOD goes into the Arctic Code Vault
This was a pleasant surprise. A few weeks ago, I noticed this little message on my main GitHub page. Arctic Code Vault Contributor Curious, I hovered on the text and learned that a few of my open-source repositories — JOD in particular — had been archived in GitHub’s Arctic Code Vault. That sounded literally cool! … Continue reading JOD goes into the Arctic Code Vault
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 