Photo of the Week - August 30, 2026

This week's photo is of the Lake Ontario shoreline in Pickering near sunset about a month ago. And yes, that is the correct name of the lake. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

A quiet Lake Ontario at sunset

 

Saturday Sounds - Miles Davis Live in Berlin 1969

YouTube's algorithm keeps presenting me with some real gems, and today's post is one of them: Miles David Live in Berlin 1969. I don't know anything about the video other than it appear to be from a German jazz festival and I'm guessing it was shown on German TV. The video quality is about what you'd expect from 1969 but the sound is fine. 

In any case, it's a spectacular performance featuring, along with Davis, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Dave Holland on bass, Chick Corea on keys, and Wayne Shorter on sax. You can't ask for more, except maybe for a longer video.

Here's the tracklist.

00:00 - Introduction

02:02 - Directions

08:52 - Bitches Brew

22:41 - It's About That Time

37:22 - I Fall in Love Too Easily

40:50 - Sanctuary

44:27 - The Theme

It's interesting to hear early versions of some of the material ("Bitches Brew" and "Sanctuary:" that ended up on the Bitches Brew album the next year. I have to wonder what the audience thought of the new material. Enjoy!

The US Versus Canada 17

Now that trade talks between Canada and the US have broken off, it seems that we are now in a full scale trade war. Before I get into the heavy stuff, let's start with this wonderful video, 

Now fo the heavy stuff (oldest articles to newest). 

• The Gordie Howe Bridge Is What American Betrayal Looks Like. "Canada spent billions on the crossing. Trump turned it into a shakedown."
• Trump Wanted to Punish Canada. American Workers Paid the Price. "The tariff war has cost US border towns thousands of jobs, and the damage will be hard to undo."
• Never mind the insults. It’s time for Canada to hit the U.S. where it really hurts (gift link). "Now comes the hard part. There was good reason to bargain long and hard for an iffy deal if it saved the furniture. But when all was said and done, a bad deal would have undone our economy and unravelled our sovereignty. Walking away was the wise move. So what’s our next move, exactly?"
• Trump Wants To Control Canada. They Said, “Eh, Screw That.” "Add another trade war with Canada to the list of Trump blunders right before the midterms."
• It Has Begun. "We are at war. This was never about tariffs on steel or the fee structure on the Gordie Howe Bridge. From the opening days of the Trump administration, Canada was subject to a new form of warfare — constant harassment and intimidation with a focus on breaking our economy and making us beg to be a vassal territory."
• IT IS TIME FOR CANADIAN COURAGE. "Premier Smith is the weakest link in Team Canada’s effort against Trump’s tyranny against us. Don’t let her play games with our provincial well-;being and our national sovereignty."
• We Are Not Red or Blue. We Are Canadian. And MAGAmerica/Trump Are On the Menu. "Trump and MAGA keep trying to read Canada through an American lens. That’s why they keep losing. Here’s who we actually are, with receipts."

This is just a small sample from my feeds and news sites over the last couple of weeks. If you want more, the sites of the articles in this post and previous posts in the series. 

Some Short Book Reviews

I'm trying to up my reading game, spending more time reading (which includes having the book read to me by Google Play or the Kinde app), and less time listening to podcasts or doom scrolling. This was also motivated by the need to read a few of the nominees for the Hugo Awards, since I bought a supporting membership to get the voters' packet.

So here are some short reviews of some of the books I've read in the last few months.

• Children of Time/Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky: I've been meaning to read something by Adrian Tchaikovsky for quite a while after recommendations by friends and family members, and I'm glad I did. Both Children of Time and Children of Ruin were highly readable SF with interesting and believable aliens, solid world building, and well-developed characters. I found the plot of Children of Ruin a bit hard to follow in places, but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed both books. 

 

• The Regicide Report by Charles Stross: With The Regicide Report, Charles Stross finally completes the main story arc of his long-running Laundry Files series. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read at least some of the other books in the series. Given that the events in the book take place before the sequel New Management trilogy, it felt a bit redundant. 

• Death of the Author by Ndedi Okefor: This is a Hugo nominee and I might not have read it otherwise. In the near future, a university teacher of creative writing gets fired after criticizing a student and decides to write a science fiction novel. The book becomes a huge success, completely altering the author's life. In alternating sections, Okefor includes parts of the author's novel, gradually integrating the two stories. It's well done and very readable, if a bit heavy on family drama. 

• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow: I am not a big fan of fantasy novels, but decided to read this based on some glowing reviews and its Hugo nomination. It's a riff on the Arthurian legend, with a time travel loop thrown in. I found it quite compelling; the setting, pacing, and characterization are first rate and Harrow is a top flight prose stylist. It may win the Hugo award this year and it would be well deserved. 

• Ancestral Night/Machine by Elizabeth Bear. I have read and enjoyed several shorter stories by Elizabeth Bear but have not read any of her novels until now. These are space operas with a large cast of aliens and a diverse human culture spreading through the galaxy. I liked the setting and stories but there was too much character introspection for my taste, and I found myself skimming a lot. I will read the third book in the series, Folded Sky, soon.. 

 

Coming soon, a review of Biological War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen.

Photo of the Week - August 23, 3026

Today's photo is of marigolds that we planted along the side of our garden to attract pollinators. We've planted them before, but this year they really took off. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Marigolds

Saturday Sounds - The Tragically Hip - Live July 22 - August 20, 2016

Today's musical treat is something very special, especially if you are Canadian. Live July 22 - August 20, 2016 is a live album culled from the last concert tour of Canada's most beloved band, The Tragically Hip. 

That isn't hyperbole, by the way. Their last concert was broadcast live over the CBC and watched by an estimated 11, 700, 000 people, about one third of all Canadians. (The CBC will be rebroadcasting it tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern, on TV and radio, CBC GEM on the web, Sirius XM and YouTube. I will be watching, with beer and Kleenex in hand).

As for the album, I think it will eventually become known as one of rock's greatest live albums. The band, and especially lead singer and lyricist Gord Downie, who was dying of brain cancer during the tourn, gave it their all. It's far more than a greatest hits album; the hits are there, but so are a large number of deep tracks from their catalog, all brilliantly played. If you are new to The Hip, check out "Nautical Disaster", "50 Mission Cap", "New Orleans Is Sinking", or "Bobcaygeon", to name a few of their most popular songs..

Play it often and play it loud.

 

Getting a Better List of Styles in Word

Styles are one of Microsoft Word's better features but Microsoft has never made them particularly easy to use and especially never easy to manage. In my last job, I eventually created a small set of templates with a common set of style names but with differing formats. Some documents could have more than thirty styles. Tracking changes to the styles across differnt documents was painful. 

Office Watch points outs that you can use AI tools like Copilot or Gemini to help you analyse and manage your styles. 

Copilot or any AI (Claude, ChatGPT etc.) can read a Word styles document and reorganize the contents into something more useful, such as:

• Hierarchy table
• Grouped Styles
• Style Guide
• Design System Diagram
• Visual Table
• Style Compliance Table

The article includes a sample prompt and some examples of reports and diagrams that you can create. 

As I recall, Adobe FrameMaker doesn't have many features for reporting on style properties, but there are third-party tools that you could probably use in conjunction with AI tools to create similar reports.