Category: Journal

Too Close to Call

[election lawn signs]

Sometimes I get excited about elections. I mean, I *like* talking about policy stuff I’m passionate about and I often find the democratic process invigorating and exciting. Other times, it just fills me with dread.

[When last we met](http://flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2012/09/02/by-election/), Kitchener—Waterloo was holding a by-election to replace long-standing PC MPP Elizabeth Witmer. The victor in that race was NDP candidate Catherine Fife, which I felt pretty happy with, for reasons you can read about in the aforelinkedto blog post.

Now things are a bit different. The Liberals aren’t being complete jerk-asses. They’ve got a new leader I actually rather like and they’re running on a platform that’s pretty much everything I want them to run on. Even high speed rail between KW and Toronto, which I acknowledge is somewhat implausible, but I’ll take “we’re gonna do it! don’t ask me how” over “it’ll never happen; we hate you.” any day.

The PCs, however, have fallen back on faith-based economics and populist vitriol and stand in opposition to pretty much everything I believe in. They’d cancel Places to Grow and clean energy subsidies. They’d cancel all surface transit projects. They’d cut absolutely everything anyone cares about. Their plan, in a nutshell, seems to be to pour out as much gasoline as they can find, chuck a match and walk away with a smug grin.

I don’t like them very much.

Let’s dive into the candidates
Continue reading Too Close to Call

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

So everybody’s really excited about [[wiki:Heartbleed]] and now we’re seeing helpful folks on social media urging all their friends and family to [change their passwords](http://mashable.com/2014/04/09/heartbleed-bug-websites-affected/).

Leaving aside that your Instagram password is probably one of the least interesting things an attacker might get through Heartbleed, changing your password will only help you until the next time a security breach leaks a (hopefully) hashed password database.

Passwords alone aren’t good enough for security anymore. Fortunately, more and more sites have implemented [two-factor authentication](http://lifehacker.com/5938565/heres-everywhere-you-should-enable-two-factor-authentication-right-now/all) or [[wiki:two-step verification]].

Continue reading Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Ugh, taxes

I need to file for capital gains. Woo, right? Except it’s gains on options I purchased nearly a decade ago. They were about to expire, and they actually weren’t under water, unlike most of my other options, but not by enough to make me think cashing them in was worth the bother. And I thought it might be fun to own some shares.

When the company in question was purchased and I sold the shares, I needed to send in my original stock certificate. I can’t find any other record of actually buying the shares. And I need that so I can figure out the price of the shares at the time so I can file that as a taxable benefit (or something. This stuff puts me over the threshold into more advanced income tax stuff, so they seem less willing to hold my hand through it all).

At least I figured out how much I actually paid for them at the time.

Do you think the CRA would mind a hand-wavey (possibly conservative) estimate? I know *about* when I would’ve bought, because I know when they would have expired. So that’s something…

At least I’m not working out the country or anything, I suppose.

2013: Year in Review

All in all, I think 2013 was a good year. A stressful year, but a good one. I can’t really talk about the stressful parts, because most of it isn’t really to do with me directly, or I’m not free to disclose publicly. But I feel generally content with things, and I feel like I’m able to deal with problems as they arise. So yeah. Good.

I feel kinda bad for posting a measly [eleven blog posts](http://flyingsquirrel.ca/index.php/2013/) in 2013. But I’m pretty pleased that [Bevan](http://bevanlantz.net/) and I kept up the [Kwartzlab Radio podcast](http://www.kwartzlab.ca/category/heavy-lab/) pretty much all year (with breaks for summer and Christmas, but we generally kept to our schedule). And, as always, you can keep up with many of my goings on on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/flying_squirrel) if you’re so inclined. (Or Facebook, if you prefer, which gets sent my tweets as well).

I’m currently basking in the afterglow of my annual NYE party. It was lovely to see everyone, play some games and give them way too much food. And watch Doctor Who. We’ll have to do it again next year.

The next few months are going to be kind of hard on me, but I think I’m up for it. We’ll see. I don’t particularly like making resolutions, so I’ll spare you that. It generally comes down to “be a better human.” And I don’t need a calendar change to tell me that.

I wish you all success in the coming year. Health, wealth and happiness. Here’s to the future.