Learn how to compare strings effectively in .NET applications. -- code

Female inventors have been denied their place in history for far too long. Sandi Toksvig on a new book that sets the record straight. -- article

10 tips to help you plan your work and make your home energy-efficient. -- reference

Emergency Kit Checklist from Hydro Ottawa -- reference

Disinfect tools between each cut with products such as "Lysol," "Listerine," or rubbing alcohol. Tests have shown that "Pine-Sol" and household bleach are highly corrosive to metal tools. -- fixit

$64 Tripp Lite 8 Outlet Surge Protector. Automatic shutoff cuts power to all outlets when the protection circuit has been compromised. 2160 joule rating. 150 clamping voltage. -- gear

Tripp Lite 8 Outlet Surge Protector. Automatic shutoff cuts power to all outlets when the protection circuit has been compromised. 2160 joule rating. 150 clamping voltage. -- gear

A chip-making process pioneered in the Netherlands will let smartphones take the next leap forward. -- technology

const socket = new WebSocket('ws://game.example.com:12010/updates'); socket.onopen = function () { setInterval(function() { if (socket.bufferedAmount == 0) socket.send(getUpdateData()); }, 50); }; -- web

A useful history of the stock market. -- money

The Economy Forecast Agency is independent from any banks, funds and other market players. -- money

CDIC protects deposits in some Canadian institutions up to $100,000 per category, per bank. If you had an RRSP, a TFSA and a savings account, each with $100,000 cash-equivalent, your deposits would be fully insured. CIPF protects investments (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etfs) held on your behalf by some Canadian institutions. CIPF protection covers up to $1-million of RRSP accounts, plus $1-million worth of RESP accounts, plus $1-million worth of other accounts, per person per investment dealer. -- money

The yield can change at any time but the $10/unit price is protected up to the $100,000 CDIC coverage. The 100k CDIC protection is multiplied by each CAD$ savings account offered by a different entity, so each of [TDB8150, TDB8155, TDB8157, TDB8159] will be protected up to 100k. -- money

Fund-based savings accounts are offered by discount brokerages as alernatives to money-market mutual funds. They are bought and sold as mutual fund units, usually of $1 or $10 value, but actually represent a CDIC-insured savings account (if denominated in Canadian dollars). These accounts can be used to store free cash in brokerage or registered accounts. They are often more convenient than Guaranteed Investment Certificates or Treasury bills. -- money

The DM3 Reader plugin allows ImageJ to open files produced by Gatan's Digital Micrograph software. -- software

Atlas 5 AT -- friends

Replaced my zipper. Offers tailoring, repairs, alterations, and custom work. Focused on making things that will last for life. Based in Ottawa, Canada -- fixit

This url shortener points to the microsoft page where you can configure 2nd-factor auth for your account. -- service

Signal looks like a promising "non-tracking" messing app. But iMessage is probably good enough. -- service

I interpret the following to mean that when you're logged in and view a photo at a url, that url has a short lifespan. But if you right-click and copy the image url (and perhaps if its in a public album) then the url is marked to live forever. This article says that the photo isn't placed at that URL until you ask for it. Google Photos normally pulls its images through a more complex back-end system, but when a user right-clicks on one of their own images, Photos responds by placing the image at the designated public URL. "There are enough combinations that it's considered unguessable," says Aravind Krishnaswamy, an engineering lead on Google Photos. You can give it to a friend or pull it through an automated scraper, and it will load just the same. For Google, that's a feature. "The value of URLs is that they're universal," says Vincent Mo, another lead engineer on Photos. -- web