Tyler Smith

I'm a botanist and conservation biologist in Ottawa. My work focuses on crop wild relatives and wild-harvested species, particularly berries; and invasive plants. I am trained as a plant taxonomist and community ecologist.

All opinions expressed are my own, and do not reflect those any of my employer(s) past, present or future.

My interests include photography, woodworking, kayaking, swimming, hiking and natural history.

Website: https://plantarum.ca
Photos: https://www.flickr.com/people/carex/
orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7683-2653

Public Key

npub1s7hatddda3hjyvncecc0rh7ax3mr0tzfq38e373e39wmp8d7xcaqudfx8m

NIP-05 Address

plantarum_at_ottawa.place@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsg0t74kkk7cmezxfuvuv83mlwnga3h43ysgnuclgucjhdsnklrvwsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyv8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnndehhyapwwdhkx6tpds8u94fg

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

relay.snort.social

atlas.nostr.land

Author Public Key

npub1s7hatddda3hjyvncecc0rh7ax3mr0tzfq38e373e39wmp8d7xcaqudfx8m

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Last Notes

2025-09-17 13:46:21 UTC

Idle musings from a only moderately technical Emacs user:
One of the recurring issues in the #Emacs world is that it could/should be rewritten in scheme/lisp/python/whatever. And one of the main barriers is the volume of existing elisp code that would have to be ported to the new system.
I wonder, what if we didn't care about that barrier? Just started over with the goal of making a new editor in a 'modern' language that was designed to be extensible like Emacs is, from the ground up. Does anything like that exist?
Not intended as an argument, just curious if the user-customizable ethos of Emacs exists in other programs.

2025-07-17 18:08:52 UTC

We now have our own in-house #AI chatbot. Interesting to see how AI is being promoted as providing solutions to all kinds of problems in the #agriculture sector.
The term "AI" is used to frame all this innovation as part of the current #LLM-fueled boom (bubble). But when asked for specific things that AI can contribute to agriculture, the examples all sound like machine learning, model optimization and related approaches that we've been doing for years, and will continue to do, that don't have anything to do with LLMs.

2025-06-05 19:23:40 UTC

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That's a more descriptive name for sure, I didn't know that one. Its scientific name is Carex grayi, which just means "Gray's sedge".

2025-05-02 16:21:58 UTC

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As a GUI.
If we rule out Emacs as out of scope, certainly all my window management/program launching/web browsing is shortcut heavy. But other than the browser, these are mostly custom shortcuts, often running scripts I wrote to solve regular issues.

2025-05-02 16:15:41 UTC

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At times I may use more keyboard shortcuts than regular typing! I've got a dozen or so for managing windows and workspaces, launching and closing programs. I have the Vimium plugin for Firefox, so most of my browsing is done via hotkeys. And I do most of my work in #Emacs, which is really just a mob of shortcuts in a trenchcoat.

2025-02-07 21:51:38 UTC

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it did motivate me to check that they are still legit. Charity Intelligence Canada rates them 4 stars out of 5, for what that's worth

2025-02-07 21:46:24 UTC

We just received a letter from a charity we've been supporting for decades. It asked us to increase our monthly donation by $4. Fair enough. Except that it's 'opt-out'. If we don't reply, they'll just increase our donation starting next month.
Creepy to see these scammy 'dark patterns' making their way into the charitable sector.

2025-01-25 19:08:34 UTC

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wow, that sucks. I understand "no masks" as a (misguided!) response to public health measures. Backpacks and sunglasses seem a bit random though.

2025-01-25 19:02:36 UTC

What do people recommend for #WindowsLaptops? My wife's Dell Inspiron is fine, but apparently support for windows 10 ends in October and it won't run windows 11?
Our needs are modest, just email, office suite, zoom.
Linux is a non-starter in this particular case. I know, please let's not have that conversation ;)

2024-11-29 16:06:15 UTC

It looks like there's no way to publish a #PowerPoint presentation as a slide show on a webpage.
I've never wanted to do this before, but now that I do this seems like such an obvious gap in a modern, professional presentation program.
After a quick look, @npub1tgg…qwzh doesn't appear to support this either :(
Anyone know a way to convert slides to webpages? Bonus points if it preserves animations, but not necessary.
#LibreOffice

2024-09-16 14:30:52 UTC

My canada.ca email address will be officially shut down this month.
This was the email I used for about 12 months, following a years-long process moving from the departmental agr.gc.ca to the civil service-wide canada.ca.
The canada.ca emails were phased out in September 2023, and are now considered "legacy" (jfc, after barely a year in service). Now we're back to agr.gc.ca. Actually have been, in practice, for a year or two already.
The only lasting impact on me of this multi-year long process involving god knows how many IT professionals and budget dollars, is my address, originally tyler.smith, is now tyler.smith3.
So. Job well done everyone!
#gc

2024-09-13 23:33:16 UTC

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Apparently the NDP opposed the original version as proposed by Stephane Dion, and wanted cap and trade instead. Singh sounds like he wants taxes at the industrial level, not the consumer level.
But the way this has been rolled out is atrocious. The NDP has to own that, in part. But I wonder if the press is intentionally muddling this on his behalf. Most Canadian media seems solidly committed to the idea that the NDP isn't a serious party, and they treat them as such.

2024-09-13 12:56:37 UTC

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your password manager review doesn't include the one included with Firefox. I find it very convenient to use. Does it have shortcomings I should be aware of?

2024-08-28 16:31:15 UTC

@npub1ucc…jxn6 @npub1ppe…qv2g
I have an ant question that I've been thinking about since I found a lone worker when I unpacked the car.
What happens to individual ants that are disconnected from their family? If one gets in my car and I accidentally take it 100s of km away, does it join a new family, try to find its way home, or just become a free agent?
I'm hoping they don't just starve to death, but I don't know how capable they are of independent life without the rest of their sisters around for mutual support and direction.

2024-08-27 01:06:21 UTC

It's a great year for berries in #Labrador. This is Northern Blueberry, *Vaccinium boreale*, in Goose Bay.
This is a dwarf (and diploid) version of the more widespread Lowbush Blueberry that's common in eastern Canada (and tetraploid).
#botany #photography
https://assets.ottawa.place/media_attachments/files/113/031/286/531/622/562/original/9658d3da8de66ffe.jpeg

2024-07-31 02:49:27 UTC

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how big would you like it to get? I wonder what the optimal size is for coop.
Also, what is your geographic composition? I've been very interested in coops in general, so this is very appealing. But I also like my comfy Ottawa server, which is so far run by a couple of admins who volunteer all their time and resources.

2024-05-22 23:15:51 UTC

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An anti-climatic resolution:
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
and all is well!
I reviewed the lists of packages to remove, to check there was nothing too critical, before confirming.
And that's all it took.
Lesson learned: #apt is indeed a more powerful tool than #aptitude.
#debian

2024-05-22 14:21:13 UTC

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oof. Sounds worse than I'd hoped. But that's also freeing in a way, as if reinstalling is a likely result at this point, I don't need to be so concerned about breaking something as I try to fix it in place.
Thanks!

2024-05-22 13:21:35 UTC

Question for #Debian users:
I'm running testing on my laptop, as I have been for a couple decades. I've been waiting for the t64 transition to settle out before resuming updating packages.
I think the transition is now (mostly?) done, but aptitude is still flummoxed when trying to resolve 1300+ package updates.
I've tried to find small groups of packages that I can manually select and upgrade, but with few exceptions pulling on one of these threads quickly leads to a tangled mess of broken packages.
Any advice for how to tackle this would be most appreciated!