Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 01/10/2026A nice outing today. I did date myself a bit though, I said something about "Bebop and Rocksteady" when I saw that particular pig's expression, and nobody got the reference (teenage mutant ninja turtle's villain's henchmen, likely aired in the late 1980s, if you're curious). 190
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Something seemed compromised in my amine cabinet, but I could not find an obvious suspect, so I spent my afternoon taping up almost every bottle, except the most commonly used ones. Yellow bins are temporary, I don't normally stack things that way. 020
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Can somebody explain to me why it's a good idea to keep all of your files only in the cloud, and not on the device you own? That's increasingly the default option, yet I see a bunch of negatives, and very few positives. 650
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 22/09/2026While Captain Ransom might approve of today's pangram, I'm annoyed it did not accept QUINONE. 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 20/09/2026www.realtor.ca/real-estate/... Who wants to join forces with me, and have a nice little compound to live in? Off the beaten track, on the water, close enough to everything you need!realtor.caCheck out this listing339 Mill Village East Road, Mill Village, Nova Scotia B0J2H0 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Many years ago, I briefly shut down ACS access for all Harvard IP addresses, because I was downloading all the papers from a particular author so quickly that the ACS website judged I had a bot-like speed. 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 20/09/2026A small problem in today's world, but it's a bummer when you could once readily get a particular starting material, and now you cannot. 082
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 16/09/2026While it was objectively very easy Tuesday one, getting a non-Monday crossword in under 10 minutes is very rare for me. 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Nothing like Spelling bee to make me second guess my spelling skills. 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 07/09/2026www.maptap.gg September 6 100🎯 99🎯 100🎯 100🎯 98🎯 Final score: 993 Close, but not quite :(maptap.gg🎯MapTap Daily Geography GamePlay MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers. 000
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 03/09/2026This might be my lowest score yet. Funny, because I'd actually like to visit Valparaíso, I just seem to have no idea where it is. In my defence, Chile is a long country, so a small area away can cover a lot of distance! www.maptap.gg September 3 98🎯 95🏅 95🏅 78🌞 99🎯 Final score: 914maptap.gg🎯MapTap Daily Geography GamePlay MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers. 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 30/08/2026I enjoyed watching the Venetian Night in Halifax. The boats go up and down the Northwest Arm, to mark the end of summer sailing season. Still plenty warm. I'm not at all a boat person, so excuse my descriptions in the captions. 150
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 28/08/2026My best effort to capture the eclipse from my balcony, holding my phone up to a binocular eyepiece. 071
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Photo from earlier. Before the chomp. Not sure if clouds will cooperate. 040
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 26/08/2026TIL my little old crown of thorns plant, of which I have many cuttings around, makes lots of phorbol esters. Phorbol was (and maybe is) a hot topic in total synthesis. I've had crown of thorns for many many years, and not known this. 000
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Another camping trip in the books for this increasingly less-nervous driver! 090
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Immortalized by Google Street View. To the best of my knowledge, the only instance of me on it! www.google.com/maps/@42.331...google.comGoogle MapsFind local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 16/08/2026LOL, was at a wedding last night with a bunch of old students turned friends. So of course I had a dream where I was a student again, taking an exam in math, which I knew nothing about. "School Dreams" are pernicious. I suspect I will always have them. 150
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 13/08/2026I use F.LUX to reduce the blue light in my screen at night. (I commonly get asked "why is your screen so orange"). Anyway, I just realized my location was still set to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, after all these years. Not a huge difference, but funny I never noticed it! 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Within spitting distance of perfect :( www.maptap.gg August 9 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 94🏅 Final score: 982maptap.gg🎯MapTap Daily Geography GamePlay MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers. 000
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 09/08/2026My 24 year old computer broke recently. It had become unusable about 12 years before, not because of hardware or software issues, but because it would no longer take updates. I have another computer that's 10 years old that would work perfectly well if the battery was not defective, and glued (1/n) 100
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Throwback to the longest hike I ever did, the Liberty Lake Loop at Kejimkujik. 120
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 08/08/2026www.maptap.gg August 8 100🎯 98🎯 98🎯 93🏆 95🏅 Final score: 958maptap.gg🎯MapTap Daily Geography GamePlay MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers. 110
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 07/08/2026First time this has happened since I have lived in Halifax! 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 07/08/2026I may have missed the message that things were changing, but I noticed the interest rate in my emergency fund account dropped yet again from what it was when I started it. So I pulled up some info, and wow, my bank has an amazing incentive structure if you put even more money in that account: 040
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 02/08/2026In the days before I had a smartphone, I printed out Google maps when I went to Dresden and Vienna, and got lost both times, as I had not printed a wide enough area. Didn't get a New York Times story though! 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 02/08/2026I'm glad I remembered it is Natal Day weekend, because otherwise I would have been afraid something was exploding! 020
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Anyone in Halifax picking up a geosmin smell in the water? Their site only appears current up to July 17th! 110
Reposted by Alex SpeedMark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 24/07/2026wow the revamped ACS website is terrible 4344
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 27/07/2026Some are much faster, but I have never solved a NYT Monday crossword in under 6 minutes before! 010
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 26/07/2026I realized I have a lot of expired stuff in my camping gear, so I was restocking on emergency water purification tablets (I use a UV sterilizer normally when camping), and this was listed as something people "also buy". I have many questions. 330
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 25/07/2026Amnio is a word, but amnion is not. And of course my perennial irritation, that amination (my subject expertise) is not a word. 150
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 25/07/2026One of the privileges of my job is evaluating various grants, to help decide what might be meritorious to give government-based funding to. One of the most irritating parts of my job is navigating the government website to do that task. They constantly make changes to the portal that (1/2) 110
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 25/07/2026Latest lunar mission? No, it's just me playing around with the time-lapse mode on my phone camera. This is 30x speed. 020
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 25/07/2026The perfect angle to watch the moon inch across the sky without even leaving my couch. If you're wondering about "Otto", he is a very ineffective pigeon deterrent, though if I pick him up and wave him at the pigeons, they will fly away for 5 minutes. 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 25/07/2026A very rare achievement for me. I can usually get to "Genius" unaided, but I almost always need the "Hints", and usually Steve G. to get me to Queen Bee. Today I did it all on my own, with the only hints I took being there were 24 words, and it was bingo (ie all letters start at least one word). 000
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 22/07/2026The American Chestnut tree in full flower, with 1000s of busy bees: 031
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 22/07/2026LOL, my first grant in 2017 was for $33k a year. It took considerable more than 4 pages to apply for. This is from "The Puzzle People" by Thomas Starzl, a book I must re-read soon. If you don't know who Thomas Starzl was, he's a fascinating character. 140
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 21/07/2026While it's not representative of my time in the USA as a whole, I'll never forget asking a border guard about what to do with my physical J1 document in my passport when I made my last entry under that status, and getting a very sarcastic sounding "buh-bye" as my answer. 020
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 20/07/2026I was very sad to hear today about Dr. Nouman Ali's death this weekend. Those of us who were on the 7:30 a.m. Queen Street picket last summer enjoyed getting to know him in his capacity as picket captain, and he created a good atmosphere at a tough time. 030
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 19/07/2026I'm better at this game than the locating museum artifacts on a map/ timeline one. www.maptap.gg July 19 100🎯 100🎯 97🔥 99🎯 98🔥 Final score: 985maptap.gg🎯MapTap Daily Geography GamePlay MapTap - the daily geography game! Find 5 world locations on a 3D globe with historical stories. Free browser-based daily game for geography lovers. 000
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 19/07/2026NYT Spelling Bee making me second guess my spelling: 110
Alex Speed @awhspeed.bsky.social · 19/07/2026For some reason, my computer after its last reboot, has started trying to make calendar bookings under my Boston College account, a place I have not worked at for over 11 years, and have not had an e-mail address at for the same length of time. Make it make sense! My computer is also 4 years old. 120