Travel, Tech, Thoughts…
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Tampa City Election – March 2023
Below is my attempt to provide information on the races in the City of Tampa taking place in March 2023 on my ballot (I live in District 6). The Tampa Bay Times has provided a little bit of information on the various races, but not many details on the various candidates. (See here for their…
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Kubuntu/Linux – batch convert HEIF images
My son recently went on a field trip. The teachers who went with him took hundreds of photos… on their iPhones. Since I want the photos of him, I downloaded all of them so I could skim through them and find the ones of my son. But I quickly realized that I was having issues…
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R – importing data using haven
Introduction I hate to admit that I’ve been using R exclusively for data analysis for about 5 or 6 years and am just now realizing that I likely have been loading data sets into R incorrectly this entire time. Let me explain the issue. I regularly load datasets into R that are either in SPSS…
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Linux: Starting and Stopping Torrents from Crontab
I download my Kubuntu installation images via Bit Torrent and like to keep Bit Torrent running most of the time. However, there are occasionally times when I want to pause my torrents and then restart them (e.g., when I’m streaming videos or otherwise using lots of bandwidth). I can, of course, do this manually, but…
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Hillsborough County 2022 General Election Information
Below you will find information on the ballot for the races in my district in Hillsborough County, Florida for the 2022 general election. I try to provide basic information on each candidate without being partisan. The goal is just to make it easier for you to do your research on the candidates. While I’m trying…
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Kubuntu 22.04 – Pending update of “firefox” snap
In the 22.04 version of Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Firefox was switched from a repository to a snap. I don’t know enough about the technical reasons for that, but it does mean that how Firefox is updated has changed. It also introduced a very annoying notification message that you’ve probably seen (and which is why you’re here: Switching…
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LibreOffice – Set Image as Background/Watermark
I don’t do this very often, but occasionally I need to write a letter or something of that sort and I want to use an image as a background to the letter. A background image of this sort is often referred to as a “watermark.” (If we’re getting technical, a watermark is really a faint…
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Sociologist: It’s called ‘culture war’ for a reason
On May 2nd, 2022, the Haven, Kansas city council voted to remove decals from police cars that said “In God We Trust.” They did so in a sensible effort to recognize the separation of church and state. Sixteen days later, after an intense backlash from conservative citizens in Haven, the city council reversed that decision.…
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Maybe religion isn’t dying, but it’s definitely not well
In their recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Byron R. Johnson and Jeff Levin, referring to a paper they recently published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (IJRR), argue that religiosity is not declining in the US but rather, “Americans are becoming more religious, and religious institutions are thriving.” This claim is incredible in…
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Hillsborough County 2022 Primary Election Information
Below you will find information on most if not all of the primary races (and one ballot issue) in Hillsborough County, Florida. I try to provide basic information on each candidate without being partisan. The goal is just to make it easier for you to do your research on the candidates. While I’m trying to…