Nice, but why not just put an image-stabilized telephoto on a camera? I've lenses for my Fujis and Nikons that do the same as the Canon binoculars---and it _is_ cool when you see stabilization in action---plus you can take pictures.
IS binoculars are best for when you want to look up close with your eyeballs at a bunch of different objects right now in stereo retinal megapixel resolution and keep on looking until your eyeballs are tuckered out.
IS zoom lenses for cameras are optimal for when you know about how I might want to see a particular object up close, mainly for just a couple of 1/100th of a second intervals, but mostly later on after you get home and use software on it and whatnot.
I was lucky. I taught high school in northern California for almost a decade and it was a lovely job. Sure, the work expands to fill your nights and weekends, and part of every summer vacation I worked on improving my lesson plans, but it was an enjoyable job with good students, great fellow teachers, a supportive administration, a wonderfully diverse and accepting student body, and only the occasional annoying parent.
Benefits were decent, pay was decent, and psychological rewards were tremendous. It was far more rewarding than the previous fifteen years I spent in software development. I felt I developed software not because the world needed it but just so some rich guy could get a little richer and maybe a bit of that richness would filter down to me. Not an inspiring reason to get up in the morning.
I could tell right away I had an impact on my students, introducing them to new areas of knowledge (in my case it was chemistry). My goals were to be a role model; for them to know what kinds of questions chemistry addressed; and for them to just maybe fall in love with science a little bit. I had no illusions they were going to grow up to be chemists.
I would have remained a teacher if I hadn't decided to leave the US. I am fortunate to have left before COVID because teaching online sounds really hard.
Run flat tires are expensive, heavy, and hard riding. On the other hand, they don't go flat. I recently had a flat in my VW and I missed having my old Mini's run flats. Sometimes you just aren't in a place where you want to change a tire.
I've always had conventional tires, but when my Kia Rondo was due for new ones a few years ago, my tire guy suggested the Bridgestone DriveGuard. I was skeptical because of everything I'd heard about run flats, but he said these were a big improvement. And he was right! They feel just like conventional tires.
Maybe a bit harder ride, but I had been in the habit of inflating my old tires 2-3 pounds more than the manufacturer recommendation. So I brought these back down to the recommended 32psi and they are just fine. And they proved their worth when I got to a job interview on time even after getting a flat - and when I went to the tire shop it was a free repair instead of a new tire.
I like reader mode but lately I'll send an article to pocket (which cleans it up a lot) then I print it to a pdf which is saved in a folder in Dropbox and which is synched with my Kobo Elipsa, and with the Elipsa I can mark the articles up with its stylus. (Writing this out makes it sound a bit complicated which I guess it is.)
Canadian-American here. From what I've observed of Canada I'd expect the law will be narrowly defined and the penalties weak and rarely applied. Plus, the courts are slow as can be so I wouldn't expect an unleashing of prosecutions (though I realize this isn't a defense of a bad law). The US, in my experience, is far more severe in its criminal penalties for all kinds of things. In Canada, you wait years for trial (not in jail, you're out free) and then get a slap on the wrist.
The chilling effects it will have on free speech should not be discounted, though. Despite the patchy enforcement and relatively small fines, people will self-censor rather than risk saying anything "illegal".
It's a shame to see the low sales numbers but I can't say I'm surprised. I read about a book per week but most people I know read maybe a few books per year, if that.
Seems to me that for a lot of people, maybe the majority, the government already has all your tax data and you shouldn't need to file, only accept the government's numbers. I am in the opposite situation, especially as I have to file in two countries. Not living in the US doesn't give you a pass on filing US taxes. I get to buy two different versions of TurboTax :-( We don't worry much about a US audit (some say the IRS is starved for funding by anti-tax politicos?) whereas in our other country they quickly catch even the smallest error.
Like every other state, there is a stark divide in the culture and politics of the major metropolitan areas and everywhere else. San Francisco vs parts of rural Northern California are an even starker example of that than what you would see between Austin or San Antonio and rural Texas.
