John Chew
@poslfit
I like words, math, languages, code, food, organisation, and problem-solving. I work on Scrabble, election data, dictionaries, and translation.
Off to Vancouver with a stack of dictionary fascicles, to visit old friends, learn about dialectology, and talk about inclusive language.
At the NASPA Scrabble Players Championship, the morning staff huddle conversation turned to the scorigami of competitive Scrabble. Here's a heat map showing how often each combination of winning and losing score has occurred in the known history of our game.
Spending the week in Cedar Rapids, IA with the most dedicated Scrabble players in the continent at NASPA's annual Scrabble Players Championship: event.scrabbleplayers.org/2026/spc/bui...
The cover on my BBQ grill is 81°C (178°F), just from being in the sun today. I’m tempted to make some soft-boiled eggs. Cancelling most of my outdoor and gardening plans though in favour of air-conditioned lexicography. Happy Canada Day!
Seen on tonight’s e-bike ride, an unkindness of ravens and a trip of goats.
Building a better future through tabletop gaming: Winners of United for Literacy's annual Game Night helped close Cboe Canada's trading day. Happy to be a part of a decades-old tradition, thank you to UfL and Cboe, and congrats to Scrabble champ Wai-Kwong Wong. www.unitedforliteracy.ca/Game-Night
Took a couple more photos there today, to celebrate the temporary closure of the DVP.
Learned with @kchew.bsky.social that the Lower Don Trail, while officially closed, is cyclable from Todmorden Mills to Corktown Common, and full of birds and art.
Went looking for birds, found a public art installation that I knew nothing about.
My late mother’s apple tree looks like it’s getting ready for a bumper crop this year.
I thought this would be the best part of our Sunday bike ride, but that was a tossup between spotting the wild deer in the Don Valley, and seeing a fight between some red-winged blackbirds and a great egret at the Brickworks, even if the egret didn’t use 白鶴拳
I rode my e-bike up the Lower Don River Trail with no particular destination in mind and ended up at a dead end on Don Mills south of Overlea and pondered what to do next. 1/
TIL squirrels only eat tulip flowers as part of a family tradition. laidbackgardener.blog/2022/05/07/w...
In Japanese, moegi-iro written 萌黄色 is the yellow-green colour of leaves sprouting in the spring. Often confused with its homonym moegi-iro 萌葱色, the forest green colour of Japanese green onion leaves.
30 players at the Toronto Scrabble Club tonight, including yours truly as acting director. Won one, lost one, had a great time.
Helping United For Literacy raise over $160,000 at their annual game night, wishing more Scrabble events featured live music.
Touched to receive a thank you card (shared with Shan and Max) today from the students at the last of this year’s three qualifying events for the Toronto School Scrabble Championship city finals.
It’s a shame I don’t need to buy a vacuum cleaner more often, because the guys at VACSMART have an amazing combination of technical knowledge, improv skills that make me feel like I’m in an Abbott and Costello skit, and inventory that always has things I didn’t know I needed, at a reasonable price.
“Every […] bicycle shall be equipped with an alarm bell, gong or horn, which shall be kept in good working order and sounded whenever it is reasonably necessary…”
Comfortably dressed for waiting for the bus, but for some reason my iPhone facial recognition has stopped working.
Keeping bus services running in a snowstorm includes digging through snowdrifts at bus stops. Thank you to whoever dug this path.
60 cm of snow, and our laneway is transformed into a network of narrow footpaths shovelled out by neighbours reaching out to each other.
Thanks to the technician at the Apple Store who was able to safely extract the tip of my Lightning connector (bottom left in photo) from my iPhone, solving a no charge problem for no charge.