My 5-year-old son got out a tennis ball and racket in the back yard and said: “Let’s pretend we’re playing Wii Sports!”

There’s a page on Wikipedia about the absurdly long, but grammatically correct, English sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

As if that weren’t enough, there’s a delightful diagram to help explain sentence:

While I love the absurdity of the diagram above, there’s another image on the Wikipedia page that I found more effective in explaining the buffalo sentence:

I’ve never been good at swallowing pills. When I do, I need lots of water and I throw my head back and forward in a graceless hideous spasm of multiple failed attempts. If someone is looking at me, it gets even more difficult. I’ve gotten a bit better at it through years of practice, but I still don’t like it.

I learned recently that I find it a bit easier to swallow pills if I use fizzy water (carbonated water) like Bubly, La Croix, or from something like a Soda Stream, as in my case.

If you’re like me and struggle a bit when swallowing pills, try fizzy water.

Hey you there looking at your phone while driving by outside my kitchen window.

I see you while I wash the dishes.

I see you.

Back in February, I wrote about A Mario Kart theory of media and economics. I learned today that a researcher from Boston University, Andrew Bell, had already an academic paper about using the Mario-Kart balance principles to help with environmental governance (behind a paywall). Bell’s paper is also covered by Boston University’s research magazine.

Let’s hope that Blue Shell theory gets more attention. It also occurrs to me that the basic concept (giving better/more resources to those who need it more) is also a video-game version of Marx’s “to each according to his needs”.

Also, it’s really too bad that academic papers are pay-walled.

Like many people this year and last, I’ve been working from home. During much of the day, I’m the only person in the house. While doing some types of work, I like to listen to music and sometimes find myself singing along. I stumbled across a way to make singing along with your headphones more fun (and, if someone comes home, even more embarrassing).

If you have a microphone that doesn’t pick up much sound from your headphones (my headphones have a mic mounted on an arm, like a dorky air traffic controller), you can use that mic you hear your own voice along with your music, but better.

On a Mac, start up GarageBand. There are probably equivalents for other operating systems.

Create an empty new project and choose the microphone audio track type:

Make sure monitoring is turned on and that it’s using your mic as the input:

Select your track and use the Controls panel (screenshot below) to enable some Reverb and Ambience effects, and tweak the EQ levels. I like adding some bass (“LOW”) to make up for a tinny headset mic. Adding reverb really helps smooth over your terrible singing voice.

Now, play your favourite music (with any music app on your computer, like Spotify or Apple Music) through your headphones, sing like a fool, and be amazed to hear your bass-y and reverb-soaked voice blending in with your favourite songs. You can tweak the output volume of your regular music app and of your voice in GarageBand to find the right balance.

You’re welcome.

Today, while confirming the spelling of the French term sacre bleu (for an important work presentation), I came across the term “minced oath”.

According to Wikipedia:

A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics.

Wikipedia

Examples include gosh or golly (instead of God), or dang or darn instead of damn.

Minced oath is a flippin’ great term.

In his interview with author George Saunders (at 48 minutes in), Ezra Klein shared this anecdote:

Someone once told me that whenever you think “huh, that doesn’t make sense”, what it means is that your model of the world doesn’t make sense. The world always makes sense on its own terms. It’s you is missing something.

Ezra Klein, February 19, 2021

I find myself thinking “huh, that doesn’t make sense” a lot lately. This seems like it could be a helpful way to rethink those situations.

Back in 2008, Brad Turcotte, aka Brad Sucks, came to our Zap Your PRAM conference in Dalvay-by-the-Sea, Prince Edward Island. He generously shared a look into his songwriting process and let us leach off of his Internet fame.

Brad’s 2003 album included the Internet-hit Making Me Nervous, which still holds up. My favourite song from that album was Overreacting.

Brad’s got a new album, A New Low In Hi-Fi, coming out in June. The first single, In It To Win It is out now. Congrats on the new album, Brad.

You can support Brad’s music on Patreon.

As I’ve written before, my dream car is a mythical 3-year-old electric minivan. It’s mythical because it doesn’t exist yet. Even if an electric minivan was released tomorrow, it wouldn’t be three years old for at least [pause for calculation…] three years.

I’m keeping an eye on it though. Here’s a snapshot of what a major automakers have to offer in the direction of an electric minivan as of March 2021. Note that this is only based on my own barely-researched reading of company websites and bits of industry news.

Summary: Not yet

As of March 2021: No one sells a pure EV minivan yet. See below for a run-down of the next-best things.

March 2022 Update: No major changes. The VW van is still years out for North America. The hybrid Sienna and the PHEV Pacifica are still the best options.

Honda: Nothing

As of March 2021: Honda has no electric minivan in production or on the horizon. Their gas-powered Honda Odyssey is still generally regarded as one of the best minivans on the market. I have a 2013 Odyssey, and it is a good van. As far as I can tell Honda doesn’t have even a hybrid minivan, let alone a full EV minivan, in the works.

Toyota: All in on hybrid, no EV

As of March 2021: Starting with the 2021 model year, Toyota transitioned its popular Toyota Sienna minivan to be all hybrid. If you go by a new Toyota minivan, it’s going to be a hybrid.

This is a great improvement over a conventional gas engine alone, and offers an immediate route to a significant reduction in fuel use and carbon output. Still, driving a hybrid continues to prop up the infrastructure around internal combustion vehicles. As a transition vehicle though, this will save a significant amount emissions and if there isn’t a pure-EV option available, I could see buying a 2021 Sienna Hybrid in 2023 or so.

As far as I can see Toyota does not have a full EV minivan in the near future.

Chrysler: Plug-in hybrid option, no EV

As of March 2021: The Chrysler Pacifica is available in a plug-in hybrid model that can drive up to 51 kilometres on battery alone. It appears, that you can’t manually force the Pacifica to drive on battery alone. The vehicle decides when to use the gas engine and when to rely on the battery automatically.

Most days our family drives well under this 51 KM battery range, though it sounds from reviews like the gas motor will start up to keep the van (and battery system) warm at least during winter even if the battery is at full charge.

This is still a good step toward EV minivans and better than a regular (no plug-in) hybrid, as it does encourage some of the charging infrastructure like getting a level 2 charger installed at your home. It’s also eligible for a PHEV subsidy where live on Prince Edward Island (even for used models, which is a nice policy improvement).

Volkswagen: Nothing yet, but an all EV van promised

Update – March 2021: According to Car & Driver, the ID.Buzz van will be released in 2022 for Europe, and 2023 for the US (no word on Canada).

As of March 2021: Volkswagen doesn’t sell a minivan of any kind in North America right now. They have indicated that an EV model of the VW minibus is in the works as part of their ID line.

This sounds great, and is more than just vaporware considering that they are actually manufacturing and delivering their ID.3 and ID.4 EVs elsewhere in the world (though not yet in Canada).

For now though, you can’t buy an EV minivan from Volkswagen today nor is there an indication of when that will change.

Kia: Nothing

As of March 2021: Kia is busying trying to make their minivan look like a big SUV (wrong approach – embrace the minivan!). There’s no indication of an electric or even a hybrid model.

Hyundai: Nothing yet, but a hint

As of March 2021: Hyundai doesn’t have an EV minivan available, but they have started to talk about their new Staria van. There’s no indication yet of what will power the Staria, but I’d like to think that there won’t be too many new gas-powered models announced anymore.

Tesla: How do you feel about gull-wing doors?

As of March 2021: Tesla is the only major car company that is purely focused on electric vehicles and has a large number of real all-electric models on the road.

The closest thing they have to a minivan is the Model X. It gets close in terms of seating capacity, but is much more like a large SUV than a minivan. Oh, and it’s also a self-driving supercar with gull-wing doors that costs twice as much as an actual minivan. Nope.

Ford: Nothing

Ford gets credit for delivering a competitive EV car in their Mustang Mach-E. These aren’t just a model you can “sign-up for updates” on – you can buy one in Charlottetown PEI now. That said, there’s no minivan EV announced.

GM: Nothing

GM also gets credit for selling a real viable EV in the Bolt, but also has no minivan announced.

While there doesn’t seem to be an electric minivan for me yet (let alone one that is 3-year-old, as I’d like), I won’t be buying another purely gas van again.