Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Despite more technology and more forms of communication possible, how is it that communicating with your bank can be so hard? It really still comes down to people. They can use the technology, but if there's no proper follow-up, it's all useless. Which ultimately leads to simply looking for another financial institution. (1) Earlier this year, I received  an email from a CIBC "Financial Service Representative", Tej Gill. This was the second time that this person has emailed me. When I emailed them back the first time, they did not reply and simply sent me another email weeks later, in March. (2) The email I received in March (slide 1 below) was just as vague and thoroughly uninformative as the first one: I tried reaching out [top] you regarding one of your investment accounts. Please give a call at below number [sic]. Is this some attempt to sell me more stuff? What is this about? I didn't want to waste my time calling, hoping that this person might be in and avai

My mom is getting on in years but still refusing to treat herself to new things. So this Mother's Day I splurged a bit and got her a Qings Cake  ("King's Cake"?) They can make pictures in a jelly based on photographs you provide, but even without any photos, they have a good assortment of images you can choose from. I didn't have a picture of the cat my mom used to have, but they did have a fluffy cat image, and with a colour substitution for the fur, it turned out really quite well. From a distance it can look quite realistic but of course once you zoom in close, it's clearly not a real cat. Still, the detail and artwork was impressive. (I think many people might be much more impressed, but I'm a jaded sort and very little really impresses me). You can contact them through Instagram to get their current brochure of products -- a small 6-inch jelly cake is not the only product! I'll go through the specifications and my experience with you but I won&#

Here's an example of why AI feels quite dangerous at this time, possibly too dangerous to responsibly release for general research use. Below is a very simple example: In this conversation with Facebook's Meta AI, I was trying to ask it how to chat with Meta AI using Facebook Messenger. Here is the transcript of the ending. I have put in bold text the most relevant parts. ME: This did not work. "Meta AI" could not be found in the "To" field. META AI: I apologize for the confusion. I'm a large language model, I don't have a physical presence in Facebook Messenger, so you can't find me in the "To" field. Instead, you can try the following: Open Facebook Messenger Search for "Meta AI" in the Discover People tab: Tap the "Discover People" icon (looks like a compass) and search for "Meta AI" Select the "Meta AI" chatbot: You should see a chatbot with my name and logo. Select it to start a conversat

Curious about Microsoft CoPilot's ability to research and aggregate data, I asked it to "Describe the typical male love interest in a romance novel of the 80's, the 90's, and later." Specifically I had wanted the 1980's and 1990's separated because it was around that time that libraries seemed to have whole shelves dedicated to Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts, prolific authors in the genre during that period. (Q & A transcripts below). In the 80s, the typical male love interest in romance novels was often portrayed as sexy and "smouldering" They were strong, aggressive, and sometimes even rough with women. Some characters were portrayed as violating women or acting like "assholes". These characters were often undifferentiated from other strong and aggressive men but transformed into a softer man capable of caring for the heroine. Fabio Lanzoni  was the iconic male model for romance novel covers throughout the 80's and 90's.

On sale this week at my local Real Canadian Superstore is Siwin brand  made-in-Canada  Sweet Tocino , a Filipino style heavily marinated pork product. It's quite hard to tell from the package because of all the red marinade, but the pork is quite fatty. Depending on how you feel about your meat, this can be good or bad. Because I was going to char it, and I don't mind tasty fat, I was definitely okay with it. The preparation is extremely simple as the product is already quite a thin slab. I chose to use a non-stick frying pan with a bit of oil: Drizzle a little bit of oil in the non-stick frying pan. Unpack the Tocino into the frying pan, leaving it as a single thin layer. Turn the heat to high and cover the pan. Let it sear for literally just a couple of minutes and check for desired amount of char. Turn the tocino over to char the other side. And just like that, you are done. Because you covered the frying pan, the steam will swirl about in there and leave you a light sauce /

This week at our local Walmart, Puck was on sale, although it took around half a week before any stock was actually available and put on the International Dairy shelf. The one flavour they had is made primarily from milk, and despite salt being listed third on the ingredient list, it is quite a salty product. In fact, it predominantly tastes like salt, with a faint note of some kind of dairy. It's hard to tell through all the saltiness but I'd say that underlying flavour is close to plain cream cheese. The texture is smooth and extremely soft, much softer than spreadable cream cheese, Nutella, or Cheez Whiz. It's firmness is closer to cake frosting. From their website FAQ: 1. What is Puck Creamy Spread made of? What are the ingredients of Puck Creamy Spread? Puck Creamy Spread is made with natural and pure milk with chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. It is free from palm oil, artificial flavors, nuts and contains 30% less sugar compared to other similar sweet spreads. 2.