Marilyn's Photos - Dec 21 2025 - Password to Heaven

 

Remember the “old days?” When passwords were an afterthought.  Compare that to now with double passwords, verifications, find the motorcycle, add up these numbers, and check that you are human.  What happened in between? There have always been passwords - it began with ancient military “watchwords” - remember Ali Baby and the Forty Thieves with Open Sesame.  Which made us children laugh tremendously.  Was it “Open sesame” or was it “Open says a me” - that’s the joke to us back then.  Supposedly it was about the sesame plant’s seed pod bursting open suddenly and dramatically when ripe, mimicking the cave door opening.  But passwords were for thieves and for the military, not for us. And so that was the case. In the 1960s when there was time-sharing mainframes, and more than one person wanted to use the computer, that’s the start of passwords.  From 1960 to 1962 is all it lasted and the first password theft occurred just two years after the first password started. The story goes that Alan Scheer, poor guy just trying to do the work on his PhD was given just four hours a week on the shared computer, definitely not enough.  So he printed the system’s password file and logged in as other users to get the work done.  He did share the password… oh oh.  There aren’t any details about his career after this. Of course it did mean better methods of creating and storing passwords with adding random characters to a stored password.  Another really big milestone was in 1988 when The Morris Worm infected 1 in 10 networked computers within 24 hours.  It was a ‘harmless”experiment, so it goes, but it inspired the beginnings of the profession of hacking.  Compared to Scheer, he got  convicted and 3 years probation and 400 hours community service.  He went on to be an MIT professor and well-known figure.  We are now in the land of breaches happening all the time, and fingerprints being used regularly for our entry to our computer and various systems. And that password to get into Heaven?  We can count on Forrest Gump for that one. When Forrest Gump reaches the pearly gates, St. Peter asks him for his password. Forrest immediately says, "1Forrest1". I was looking at my frosty pictures and wanted to make some infrared images which have a dreamy, frosty quality.  But I don’t have a camera that’s been converted to infrared.  Here’s what two samples look like, and then here’s my own version, done in Photoshop, following directions from an expert.

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Marilyn's Photos - Dec 6 2025 - Top Viral Videos 2025

 

I don’t know what the top viral videos of 2025 are.  I just see these silly headlines of cute dogs, guess what happened next, and headlines like finding a homeless person living in a cave on her property.  That last one is unnerving - who has a cave on their property?  Who goes into the cave on their property to find a homeless person?  No easy answers here. The answer:  The top viral moments of 2025 so far include the Coldplay kiss cam video, American Eagle’s controversial jeans ad and the ongoing Labubu pandemonium.   That first one is the few awkward seconds of a couple hugging at the Coldplay concert, with the quick investigation and revelation that they were a tech CEO and executive who are out on an extra-marital date. That’s the top video with over 120 million views. It still makes me squeamish that this was covered with such glee by the news outlets and the public.  We’ve got a mean streak going in 2025. The controversial “eugenics” jeans ad also leans into squeamishness with Sweeney’s “just not true” response, thinking that would solve it. She has a mean streak showing. And then the Labubu phenomenon.  The hashtag #labubu got 1 million posts on TikTok. There have been over 25 billion views on YouTube in 2025.  There’s the star of 2025. It is a modern cracker jack box surprise that is a silly looking doll - that’s all.  What a relief. Wouldn’t a Labubu be a  strange Christmas gift for someone over 70? What percentage of the Canadian population aged over 65 know what a Labubu is?  AI tells me that widespread recognition would be improbable.  Here’s one of my watercolours reinterpreted.

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Marilyn's Photos - Oct 19 2025 - Ice Cube on the Burger

Do we know the ice cube on the burger technique?  It creates steam which adds moisture to the meat   I was wondering about this as we had a really great, moist burger at The Good Earth Restaurant on Friday and wondered if it was the chef’s touch or a different technique used this time. These headlines reveal it is considered “a hack”. Does the Ice Cube Burger Trick Really Work? The Ice Cube Hack for Ridiculously uJicy Burgers Every Time YouTube · Groark Boys’ BBQ -  I put an ICE CUBE in my BURGER and this is what happened ... In comparison, the ice cube technique is also used for the following Childbirth preparations - getting comfortable with discomfort and practice coping skills during childbirth Psychological grounding - manage dissociative episodes or intense anxiety, by holding an ice cube in the hand or mount and focusing on the intense, phsyical sensation of cold Laundry - remove wrinkles by throwing ice cubs in the dryer creating steam Skincare - to reduce swelling, redness by rubbing ice cubes on the skin to soothe irritation and make the skin feel fresh and glowing In Baking?  Put an ice cube into the hot Dutch oven when baking bread to generate steam and enhance the crust texture and put the frozen dark chocolate into the batter to make a Lava Cake. I recently found this picture of reflected colours on water in an aquarium in Florida.

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Marilyn's Photos - Aug 26 2025 - More Lost and Found

 

After the wedding ring story yesterday, it got me wondering about famous lost and found stories.  Most of them are about people being lost and found.  Under the heading Heartwarming Reunions:  Raudhatul Jannah: A young girl swept away by the 2004 Indonesian tsunami who was found a decade later after being cared for by a fisherman's family. Jaycee Dugard: Kidnapped at age 11, she was found 18 years later living in a suburban backyard, though she had been hidden in plain sight the entire time. There are many Lost Cat and Dog Stories: Emily the Cat: Found in a shipment of paper bales, this tabby cat had traveled 4,500 miles before being reunited with her family by Continental Airlines.  Howie the Persian Cat: After running away from home, this Persian cat was found a year later, having crossed 1,000 miles of Australian outback.  Georgie Georgie, a black and white dog, went missing in Tlisi, Georgia, in 2015. His owner, Mr. Biani, searched for months with no success. Three years later, employees at a local business saw a dog matching Georgie's description and contacted Biani. The subsequent reunion was filmed and went viral, with tens of millions of views, capturing the emotional moment the dog recognized his owner.  And consider the famous paintings that were lost and then found.  They include Van Gogh's "Sunset at Montmajour", found in an attic after the owner's death, and "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, which was stolen and recovered twice from different locations.  Stolen paintings recovered is a long list with some of the works still "missing."  You wonder whose walls they are showcased on. There are many Stradivarius thefts, and most of them seem poignant and sad.  Take these two examples:   Lost: Violin prodigy Min Kym's 1696 Stradivarius was stolen in 2010 while she was eating at a sandwich shop in London. Found: The violin was recovered in 2013, but was not returned to Kym. The trauma of the loss and recovery is detailed in her memoir, Gone: A Girl, A Violin, A Life Unstrung.  Lost: This 1727 Stradivarius was stolen in 1995 from the apartment of virtuoso violinist Erica Morini, just weeks before her death. It was replaced with an empty case and has never been found.  The best lost and found stories are about connection and caring, and never giving up - and especially poignant when it comes to dogs and cats.

This garden is at one of the seniors' condominiums in Grimsby - it has a covered gazebo with a waterfall and pond.  Quite a lovely spot.

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Marilyn's Photos - July 9 2025 - Fear of Missing Out

 

The New York Times has an article on AI int he classroom and reference the tech companies' sales strategy as being based on the "fear of missing out" - that students will be set up for failure if they don't use AI.   My generation is genuinely marvelling at what can be done by chatbots.  For people with low skills for composing, they are amazed at what is written on their behalf.  I listened to a conversation amongst people who I thought were educated. They had math and science skills and felt they didn't have good composing skills for emails and correspondence.  AI gets them up to and beyond the threshold of good writing.   That makes me think this is about the fear of missing out - of not being "good enough" or  being able to "keep up."  So would we expect it to improve their general writing skills?  I expect it will replace their correspondence and they will be dependent on it.  Is that what we want of school learning?  And I sure hope AI gets better at writing.  To me, a lot of what it writes is ingratiating, unctuous, flattering, insincere, obsequious, and fawning. There needs to be some AI to develop authenticity. Me, I seem to be going backwards. I've turned off spell-check. Gerry showed me where I could do this in my MAC so there's almost no word replacement, except for some programs online. I would rather have to read my work carefully than just blast along with a trail of weird words dangling behind.  Some of them were fun, though, and I will miss those surprise moments.  There's a colourful array of Muskoka Chairs.

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Mairlyn's Photos - July 7 2025 - Pinks and Quarts

 

Those little pink and quart boxes are the standard for fruits - especially tender fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for as long as I can remember.  And I know they were made of thin wood prior to being moulded paper or plastic. The original approach was called a pottle and it was a conical wood chip basket with a handle.  Wikipedia has a picture from 1688.  What were they replaced by int he mid-1800s?  Punnets - that was the name for our current little square wooden box.  Beamsville had a punnet factory - but it was called the Beasmville Basket and Veneer Company. "Logs were soaked in boiling water, and then peeled strips were dried and assembled into various sizes of baskets. The factory's output was crucial for the region's fruit industry, enabling growers to transport their produce to market." "The Beamsville Basket and Veneer Company operated until December 1981, when a fire caused its destruction. Despite the fire, the company's impact on the region was substantial, particularly in shaping the fruit-growing sector and the town's economy. The factory's history is intertwined with the growth and prosperity of Beamsville and the surrounding fruit belt." And we haven't mentioned six-quart, nine-quart, and 11-quart baskets.  That's for stone fruit - peaches, apples, pears - things that are bigger or are not tender.  What about those tough little blueberries - they can handle a big basket. And didn't I forget bushel baskets?  There they are filled with pumpkins and squash.  From beginning to end of the growing season, baskets are with us.

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