The Soft Apocalypse is Coming to Hurricane Country

From Mary Geddry's excellent Substack newsletter on Sunday . 

"And while all of this unfolded, assassination, war, economic sabotage, and political theater, yet another quietly catastrophic story slipped into view. The Trump administration fumbled NOAA’s contract renewal for the Saildrone hurricane forecasting fleet, eliminating a key tool used to predict storm intensity just as the U.S. heads into what could be a record hurricane season.

Because of bureaucratic delay and staff cuts, these drone boats, which had provided real-time, in-storm ocean-level data for four years, won’t be deployed. NOAA scientists are scrambling to replace them with airborne tools, but they admit: nothing else gives the same surface-level, loitering data that helps sharpen evacuation warnings and save lives. The kakistocracy fails again!"

Quietly catastrophic, indeed. 

There's more details about the sail drones and the contract not being renewed in this article.

There was a science fiction novel that came out a decade or so ago that reminds me of what's going on now, Soft Apocalypse by Wil McIntosh. The apocalypse it envisions is very much like what we're going through now. The title seems prescient, except that the apocalypse won't be soft for those in hurricane country.

Featured Links - June 16, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

A bearded iris in our garden

Imperial ouroboros. "Andor's second season is a powerful look at the fragility of oppressive ideologies." This is the best article I've read about the series and reveals just how remarkable an achievement it was. There's a master's thesis waiting for someone who wants to explore the revolutionary themes in Andor, The Expanse, and Babylon 5. 

This 1999 email from a tech pioneer helped me think about Apple’s WWDC. "Jef Raskin instigated the Mac project in 1979. Twenty years later, he was dismayed with the state of personal computing. What would he think today?"

RIP to the almost future of computing: Apple just turned the iPad into a Mac. "We didn’t need 15 years to get back to where we started." I will probably not use the new interface on my iPad Mini, but may on the bigger iPad Air. 

Teachers Are Not OK. 'AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."'

432 Chinese robots moved an entire 7,500-ton neighborhood before returning it to its original spot to build a subway. Metrolinx, are you paying attention to what's going on elsewhere in the world?

50 Rare Vintage Pictures Showing The Everyday Grit Of Working Class Americans Back In The Day. This is a fascinating collection. I wonder what an equivalent series of photos would show today.

Neanderthals Spread Across Asia With Surprising Speed—and Now We Know How. "A new study suggests our prehistoric cousins likely traveled through the Ural Mountains and southern Siberia."

The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered. "By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math."

What It Took to Build the Death Star. "We know so much about the theft of its plans, and its final destruction over the Yavin system—but building the Death Star was a project decades in the making." Taking Star Wars seriously. 

20 hidden features in Apple’s upcoming 26-branded software. "Everything from iOS 26 to watchOS 26 is getting fun new features." I'm looking forward to trying out the new iPadOS later this year.

The semicolon defended by its advocates. I remember arguments about semicolons in my university English classes more than 50 years ago. 

Cart Cartoon Network Trolls Homophobes Hard For Melting Down Over Pride Month Fan Art. "The cable channel's Instagram account share oon Network Trolls Homophobes Hard For Melting Down Over Pride Month Fan Art. "The cable channel's Instagram account shared several pieces of fan art depicting characters from beloved shows to celebrate Pride Month—and trolled several homophobes who sounded off in the comments." Good. 

What the Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America. (archive link) "Instead of killing off faith, modernity has supercharged some of its most dramatic manifestations."

Photo of the Week - June 15, 2025

The full moon this week is apparently known as the "Strawberry Moon", probably more because it's the beginning of strawberry season than for the colour. This picture shows the moon a day or two past full with a distinctly orange cast due to the wildfire smoke in the air from the Canadian wildfires. I took this through a screen window so the quality isn't as good as it could have been, but it turned out pretty well. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro and cropped and enhanced slightly in Google Photos. 

The Strawberry moon

 

Saturday Sounds - Riverson

Riverson are a group from Montreal who released only one album in 1973 and disappeared from sight. I had not heard of them until earlier this week when they were played and mentioned on the CBC. One of the members was originally in the group Mashmakhan, who had a big hit in Canada with "As the Years Go By" and who opened for Chicago when I saw them in university. 

Riverson's album is pleasant early 70's pop/rock, very reminiscent of artists like Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young, and similar California acts of the day. It's too bad that they didn't go on to have more success, but I'm glad I got to hear it. 

A Warning and a Call to Action

Here's a long article from historian Timothy Snyder focusing on Trump's recent speech to the troops at Fort Bragg and what his rhetoric implies. The speech has been criminally underreported in the US media, probably because of the coverage of the protests in LA (which is exactly what he wants). 

This article is a warning, and coming from Snyder, who is one of the preeminent scholars of authoritarianism and fascism, it should be taken seriously. 

It's also a call to action at a time when the future of democracy is in flux and may be determined by our actions.

In the end, and in the beginning, and at all moments of strife, a government of the people, by the people, for the people depends upon the awareness and the actions of all of us. A democracy only exists if a people exist, and a people only exists in individuals' awareness of one another of itself and of their need to act together. This weekend Trump plans a celebration of American military power as a celebration of himself on his birthday -- military dictatorship nonsense. This is a further step towards a different kind of regime. It can be called out, and it can be overwhelmed.

Thousands of Americans across the land, many veterans among them, have worked hard to organize protests this Saturday — against tyranny, for freedom, for government of the people, by the people, for the people. Join them if you can. No Kings Day is June 14th.

As an aside, I'm getting the same vibes from the current situation that I did before January 6. I hope I'm wrong.  

Dispatches from the War on Science

One of the things I find most upsetting about the current US regime is their concerted attack on science and education. That alone, is going to have generational consequences, and the dismantling of organizations like the EPA, CDC and NOAA will affect not just the United States, but the whole world.

The NASA budget proposed for 2026 is the smallest since 1961

Here are a few dispatches from the war.

• Nobody Expected the MAGA Inquisition from Paul Krugman. "American scientific leadership and the prestige of our research universities are key pillars of U.S. power and prosperity. Corporate America certainly understands that our scientific and educational institutions contribute to its bottom line. So you might have expected even MAGA enthusiasts to be a bit cautious about killing this particular golden-egg-laying goose. You would have been wrong. Everything points to an effort to effectively destroy U.S. science — not gradually as part of a long-term plan, but over the next year or two."
• RFK Jr. guts the U.S. vaccine policy committee from Your Local Epidimilologist. "In an unprecedented and deeply alarming move, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every single member of the nation’s vaccine policy committee—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—and announced plans to handpick their replacements. In other words, someone with an established track record of ignoring reality made the unilateral, ideological decision to gut one of the most trusted and effective pillars of America’s vaccine infrastructure. A system that helped eliminate smallpox, drastically reduce childhood diseases, safeguard schools, expand insurance coverage, and save millions of lives. A system that empowered 90% of Americans to protect their children and families confidently."
• Standing Up for Science by Phil Plait. "As I’ve written, the Trump budget request for NASA absolutely slaughters the science done by the space agency. He has also slashed budgets to all the science agencies, severely curtailing or even totally destroying their ability to do their important research. This includes climate research (because of course) but also a lot of critical health research. This is also leading to a huge brain drain as scientists look to other places to do their work, a loss that may take decades, if ever, to recover from. And then, late Monday afternoon, word came that RFK Jr., the crackpot quack anti-vaxxer whom Trump put in charge of the department of health and Human Services, fired every single member of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practice (ACIP), the group of experts that advises the CDC on vaccines. This is a grotesque action, clearly meant to cut off any real science advise the CDC can get when it comes to vaccines… a medical procedure that is one of the most successful and safe efforts for human health in history."
  
• NOAA’s Climate Website May Soon Shut Down. "Climate.gov, NOAA’s portal to the work of their Climate Program Office, will likely soon shut down as most of the staff charged with maintaining it were fired on 31 May, according to The Guardian. The site is funded through a large NOAA contract that also includes other programs. A NOAA manager told now-former employees of a directive “from above” demanding that the contract remove funding for the 10-person climate.gov team. “It was a very deliberate, targeted attack,” Rebecca Lindsey, the former program manager for climate.gov, told The Guardian. Lindsey was fired in February as part of the government’s purge of probationary employees. She said that the fate of the website had been under debate for months, with political appointees arguing for its removal and career staffers defending it."
• Loss and Degradation of NOAA Sea Ice and Glacier data. "On May 6, 2025 NOAA/NCEI announced the retroactive termination of funding for keystone sea ice products. These are the products that I use for much of the sea ice analysis and information I present in this newsletter and in many other venues. This data helps inform decisions by people and businesses in Alaska and beyond."
• NASA's disastrous 2026 budget proposal in seven charts. "That's enough for now. There's lots more but I don't have the stomach for it. "The White House's fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget proposal for NASA represents a historic threat to the space agency. That's not hyperbole: we have the data to prove it. It's the smallest budget proposed for NASA since 1961."

That's it for now. I don't have the stomach for more.

2024 Nebula Award Winners

Over the weekend, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the winners of the 2024 Nebula Awards. The awards are voted on by SFWA members and are one of the major awards in the science fiction and fantasy field.

These are some of the winners. 

• Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell
• Novella:  The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui
• Novelette: “Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being“, A.W. Prihandita
• Short Story: “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole“, Isabel J. Kim

Back in April, I said that I would be disappointed if “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole“ didn't win the Short Story Hugo Award. It may yet and I'm not at all surprised that it won the Nebula Award. It's a remarkable story that works on many levels. 

Featured Links - June 9, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Wildfire smoke in Toronto

• Some of the coolest ways Unreal Engine is being used in and outside of gaming. "Electric vehicles and performance-capture and Star Wars, oh my!"
• Inventing the Renaissance: Ada Palmer. "A fun conversation about history." A conversation between Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman and historian and author Ada Palmer.
• Scientists stunned by dramatic new behavior in Arctic predators: 'Neither he nor I had any idea of what was coming'. "The relationship between the snowshoe hare and the Canada lynx is a fascinating natural cycle that's been studied for decades. Now, advances in technology are revealing new passages in this ancient story. According to Mongabay, that story is also changing — and both human activity and our shifting environment may be playing a significant role."
• Why Bell Labs Worked. "Why Bell Labs worked so well, and could innovate so much, while today’s innovation, in spite of the huge private funding, goes in hype-and-fizzle cycles that leave relatively little behind, is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot in the past years. And I think that the author of this article has hit the nail on its head on most of the reasons - but he didn’t take the last step in identifying the root cause." And of course, the Bell Labs building is one of the key sets in Serverance.
• ‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six’: Alan Alda on childhood, marriage and 60 years of stardom. "Best known as Hawkeye in the TV series M*A*S*H, the 89-year-old actor, director and writer has another hit on his hands with a revamp of his 1981 movie The Four Seasons. He talks about his Parkinson’s disease, Woody Allen – and what he really thinks of Donald Trump."
• The Essential Terry Pratchett. "The prolific fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, infused his writing with empathy and humor. Here’s where to start."
• What I’m learning from MAHA. "And why public health needs to catch up with the curiosity-driven movement." As a former technical writer, what I found interesting was the importance of good communication.
• You should use these 10 personal safety features on your Pixel phone (before it's too late). "Keep your data and physical safety protected with just a few taps on your Pixel phone. Here's how, and why they work." An important article if you have a Pixel phone.
• Breakthrough in search for HIV cure leaves researchers ‘overwhelmed’. "Exclusive: Melbourne team demonstrates way to make the virus visible within white blood cells, paving the way to fully clear it from the body."
• Expect a long summer of wildfire smoke for North America. "Fire danger is increasing as the climate warms, drying out forests." Toronto is seeing high levels of smoke already. See the picture on last Friday's post. 
• These stunning photos show how nature came back after the world’s largest dam removal project. "Four dams and three large reservoirs were removed from the Klamath River in a project that finished last year—and acres of native wildflowers are now in bloom along the river’s edge."
• On Tyranny free resources. "To use and to share, now or any time," From historian Timothy Synder. 
• Remembering the lost father of American science fiction – and his Scottish roots. "Robert Duncan Milne was an astonishingly prescient pioneer of science fiction who published over 60 stories in the late 19th century. Yet hardly anyone knows his name or how he influenced other leading lights in the early days of the genre." I had not heard of him until seeing this article.

Photo of the Week - June 8, 2025

Our neighbours have a large maple tree and right now it's dropping seeds all over our backyard. I'm going to have to go out later today and sweep off the patio, rake the grass, and try to get as many as I can out of the garden. This is a picture of one of our hanging flower baskets that managed to snare a couple of seeds. Taken with my Pixel  8 Pro. 

Flowers with maple seeds

Saturday Sounds - Tedeschi Trucks Band - Live at the Beacon Theatre - 2025/05/24

This week's musical treat is a full concert from the Tedeschi Trucks Band recorded at the Beacon Theater in New York on May 24th, 2025. No source info is given for this, but given the video and sound quality, I'm guessing it's from an official webcast. In any case, it's a great performance from one of the best bands now touring. Enjoy. 

 

Why We're Toast

Wildfire smoke over the 401 in Toronto

I've been publishing an ongoing series of posts titled "We're Toast" with links to articles that underscore my conviction that our technological civilization is doomed. The reasons are pretty obvious if you look around: climate change, resource depletion, ecological collapse, species extinction, rising authoritarianism and religious fanaticism, and so on. 

But if you want a detailed overview, with receipts, of why we're in trouble, then read "Understanding Our Collapsing World" on the Itsovershoot blog. The article looks at the various reasons why we're in the current mess and then examines what we can do about it (not much, unfortunately). Here's just one small sample:

We grew from 1 billion people in 1800 to over 8 billion today, and at the same time, our average energy consumption increased more than twentyfold. From about 2,000-2,500 calories per day (just enough to stay alive) to over 50,000 calories per day when you include the fossil fuels, electricity, and industrial processes that we rely on (that’s the global average). That means our total thermodynamic footprint is now equivalent to more than 160 billion Homo Sapiens roaming the Earth.

It's a long article but very readable. You might want to have a stiff drink at hand while you read it. 

 

Featured Links - June 3, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Springtime at the marina

• What are ultra-processed foods, really? "We dug into the research and answered your questions."
• The MAHA Report Is a Health Hoax: RFK Jr. Just Cited Studies That Don’t Exist. "America’s top health official tabled a report filled with fake science, dead links, and ChatGPT hallucinations. This isn’t policy—it’s malpractice by executive order."
• Predicting and Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease. "With all the advances in both the science of aging and artificial intelligence (AI), we are in a propitious position to accurately and precisely determine who is at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease years before signs of even mild cognitive deficit."
• 5,000-Year-Old Bread Recipe Recreated in Turkey—and Locals Can’t Get Enough. "A bread made from ancient grains is rising again in Turkey, and it's a big hit." Not only does it taste good, but it's made from drought-resistant plants.
• HellCaptcha: Accessibility Theater at Its Worst. "hCaptcha's "Accessibility" Mode Is a Fucking Cookie. And it's wrapped in a maze of broken promises, bad design, and outright user hostility."
• Massive security blunder: Russian nuclear site blueprints exposed in public procurement database. "Russia is modernizing its nuclear weapon sites, including underground missile silos and support infrastructure. Data, including building plans, diagrams, equipment, and other schematics, is accessible to anyone in the public procurement database."
• Changing of the guard and Best laid plans. "What does a change in ownership for the genre's legacy short fiction magazines mean for the SF/F community?" The science fiction magazines, especially Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, were my gateway into the genre.
• The Radical Development of an Entirely New Painkiller. "The opioid crisis has made it even more urgent to come up with novel approaches to treating suffering." Finally there’s something effective." This article gives real insight into the complexity of developing a new drug.
• ‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six’: Alan Alda on childhood, marriage and 60 years of stardom. "Best known as Hawkeye in the TV series M*A*S*H, the 89-year-old actor, director and writer has another hit on his hands with a revamp of his 1981 movie The Four Seasons. He talks about his Parkinson’s disease, Woody Allen – and what he really thinks of Donald Trump."

Movie and TV Reviews - May 2025

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in May. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory. Now that baseball season has started, there will probably be fewer items here.

Movies

• Working Man. Another Jason Stratham cookie-cutter action flick. This was a Saturday night popcorn movie for us; perfectly fine if you don't want anything more. (Amazon Prime)
• Star Wars: Rogue One. We decided to watch this as it's a direct sequel to Andor. I think it may be my favourite of all the Star Wars movies. 

TV Shows

• Doctor Who (season 15): The second season with Ncuti Gatwa. as The Fifteenth Doctor. I like him but most of the episodes so far haven't really grabbed me. The season finale two-parter was pretty awful. 
• Harry Wild (seasons 2-4): Another mystery, set in Ireland and starring Jane Seymour, which are probably the only two reasons to watch it. Otherwise, a standard cozy mystery. (Acon TV)
• Antiques Road Trip (season 8): Our tour of the the wilds of the UK in search of treasures continues. (PBS)
• Andor (season 2): Certainly the best of all of Disney's Star Wars series but there are still too many B-movie elements and tropes from the movies. It did get better in the second half of the season. (Disney+)

Photo of the Week - June 1, 2025

I haven't been getting out for as many walks as I'd like because the weather has been uncooperative. This is the best of the pictures I took Friday, when it was relatively warm and sunny for a change. We have been hearing a lot of birds in the trees but this swan is the only bird I saw down by the lake. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

Lunch time for swans

 

Saturday Sounds - Nick Mason and Saucerful of Secrets - 2024/07/24 - Live at Pompei

I've never been shy about mentioning my love for the pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd. Their concert in Detroit in April 1972 was one of the most powerful music experiences of my university days. I saw them in 1973 at Maple Leaf Gardens and that too was a great concert but for me, the highlight of both shows was their earlier, more psychedelic material. 

Fortunately, drummer Nick Mason is carrying the flame for Pink Floyd's earlier material with his Saucerful of Secrets band. A couple of years ago, I found a good quality video of one of his performances in Italy in 2023 and recently a new one popped up on YouTube. This concert is from the historic ampitheatre in Pompei, which was also the site of Pink Floyds 1972 concert that was made into an excellent film (now restored and making the rounds of better cinemas). This video is a fan production with multicam viideo, song titles and subtitles, and extra features. I'm not sure about the audio source, but it's quite listenable. Enjpy. 

Featured Links - May 26, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Crooked Creek, our favourite garden centre

• The rise of a new form of germ theory denial. "Outright denial of germ theory is still a fringe idea: very few deny that viruses and bacteria exist. Rather, it’s the effect of germs—whether germs are the true cause of an illness—that is increasingly being called into question."
  
• The Travers Take. Peter Travers, longtime film critic for Rolling Stone and celeb interviewer for ABC’s Popcorn, lets it rip on movies, TV, streaming, awards and the best and worst of pop culture. And he's ready for a fight.
• AI Slop PR's are burning me and my team out hard, anyone else experiencing this? "Lately there has been a huge push for teams to adopt tools like Cursor, the problem is that while yes they can generate code, it is just lately rapidly becoming an endless stream of AI slop."
• Why does Elon Musk love this socialist sci-fi series? "The broligarchs share a favorite author, but they might be missing the point entirely."
  
• An unearthly spectacle. The untold story of the world’s biggest nuclear bomb. "The Tsar Bomba is not just a subject for history; some of the same dynamics exist today. It is not just the story of a single weapon that was detonated six decades ago, but a parable about political posturing and technical enablement that applies just as acutely today. In a new era of nuclear weapons and delivery competition, the Tsar Bomba is a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless."
• Beware SVG graphics used to Bypass Microsoft 365 Security Measures. "SVG and invisible Unicode is being increasingly used to hack Microsoft 365 and Google/Gmail users even with multi-factor authentication (MFA).  It’s possible because of significant enhancements in the Tycoon 2FA platform." 
• Thousands of enormous holes discovered on the seafloor, evenly-spaced with  eerie regularity". "For now, the Sur Pockmark Field stands as the best‑charted seafloor province on North America’s west coast, a natural laboratory where wind‑farm planners, geologists, and marine ecologists share common ground. What they’ll find next is anyone’s guess."
• Covid-19 vaccines, what just happened at the FDA, and why it matters. "This is not how vaccine policy should be made." People will die needlessly because of this decision.
• Physicists confirm the incredible existence of 'time mirrors'. "A team led by Dr. Hussein Moussa from the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) in New York City has now confirmed that these mysterious events actually exist. They pulled off a successful test by changing the properties of a device in a quick, uniform way so that signals reversed direction in time." Modern physics is getting really weird.
• Nobody’s Finished, We Ain’t Even Begun: The Guitar Players Keeping the Dead Alive. "Three decades after the final Grateful Dead performance, Jerry Garcia’s sound continues to cast a long shadow. Guitarists Jeff Mattson of Dark Star Orchestra, Tom Hamilton of JRAD, and Bella Rayne explain how they interpret Garcia’s legacy musically and with their gear."

Photo of the Week - May 25, 2025

My neighbourhood, being close to Frenchman's Bay and Lake Ontario, is home to many small, old houses and cottages. Over the years, most have been torn down and replaced by more modern and larger homes. Last September I posted a picture of one of these homes and commented that it wouldn't be around for much longer. I was right and here's what's going up on that lot now. It will probably be good for the city's property tax base, if not for it's aesthetics.

New house under construction

Saturday Sounds - Dizzy Gillespie - Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac

Back to jazz this week, with a 1967 performance by the great Dizzy Gillespie. Swing Low, Sweet Cadillac was recorded at a club in Los Angeles and features him at the peak of his powers. From Everything Jazz: 

In a career full of highlights, it could be easy to overlook “Cadillac”, however it would be a shame for jazz fans to do that. Across its relatively short run-time, the listener is treated to a high-quality recording of an artist holding his audience in the palm of his hand, while adapting his art for the world around him. One can only imagine what it was like to be in the audience for either of the shows that comprise this extraordinary set.

I was lucky to see Dizzy Gillespie perform at the Belvedere Jazz Festival in Toronto in 1974 and his performance was one of the highlights of the festival. This show captures some of that magic. 

As an added treat, here's a recording of Dizzy on the Johnny Carson show in 1977 performing 'Manteca" and "I Can't Get Started". Both are wonderful.

We're Toast 60

This post is a collection of links that support my increasingly strong feeling that the human race (or at least our technological civilization) is doomed. 

A wall mural in Toronto's East Chinatown

• Running blind: The silencing and censoring of environmental threats to US national security. "Immediately after the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2025, his administration began purging these reports from the public record: removing environmental security studies from government websites or disabling those pages, cutting funding for environmental security studies, and requiring military and intelligence communities to suppress and censor references to climate change." Those who bury their heads in the sand will drown when the oceans rise.
• Trump Torched Decades of Science in Just 100 Days—and the Fallout Is Global. "In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has slashed federal agencies, canceled national reports, and yanked funding from universities. The shockwaves will be felt worldwide."
• Is This the Year We Doom Civilization? "We may be losing our last, best chance to limit climate change."
• Scientists flag disturbing trends emerging among large mammals: 'Animals are increasingly compelled ...' "These patterns highlight the role of climate as a significant regulator of movement ecology, influencing high-altitude habitat use," the authors wrote. "However, human-induced barriers, such as roads and settlements, present additional threats to these seasonal migrations." 
• It’s Breathtaking How Fast AI Is Screwing Up the Education System. "Thanks to a new breed of chatbots, American stupidity is escalating at an advanced pace." Increasing stupidity is not a good evolutionary strategy. 
• Going Out With A Bang. "The legacy of Balthus' clients attitude that they 'know the world is doomed, so may as well go out with a bang' and the unsustainable AI bubble will be a massive overbuild of data centers, most of which will be incapable of hosting Nvidia's top-of-the-line racks. If the current cryptocurrency-friendly administration succeeds in pumping Bitcoin back these data centers will likely revert to mining. Either way, the Scope 3 emissions from building and equipping and the Scope 1 and 2 emissions from powering them with natural gas and coal, will put megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, hastening the point where it is unlikely that 'us in the North, we're fine'." A long, rambling, well researched, and grim look at how AI's power demands are going to increase global warming and why the tech billionaires don't care. 
• Cancer-Causing Arsenic Is Building Up in the World’s Rice. "Rice feeds more than half of the world’s population. Climate change is loading the beloved grain with arsenic, creating a “scary” health burden."
• Polar Melt Down. "The Arctic’s ice cover has dropped to a record low this winter. It was 1.31 million square kilometers (506,000 square miles) below the 1981–2010 average. Arctic sea ice has permanently shrunk by over 60% and continues to decline year on year. The same thing is happening in Antarctica."
• How to deny climate change using the IPCC report. "The new Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, claims that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there has been no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or droughts – but Wright is wrong."

Bruce Spanks Trump

Bruce Springsteen has responded to Trump's unhinged attacks on him and other artists who supported Harris's election bid in the best way possible; with some appropriate music, an EP from his recent concert in Manchester, UK. 

From Rolling Stone:

In his intro to “Land of Hope and Dreams,” Springsteen lays out his philosophy, telling the Brits that the E Street Band would be summoning the power of rock “in dangerous times.” “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration,” he says. “Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring.” Pretty good, right? And after that you get the seven-minute Wrecking Ball song.

He played Land of Hope and Dreams in Toronto last fall and it was glorious.

Featured Links - May 20, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Spring flowers

Space United Us. Putin Tore Us Apart. "Former International Space Station commander. Watching my Russian cosmonaut friends turn to the dark side was a troubling lesson in how easily normal people can be bribed into supporting a tyrant."

World’s first personalized CRISPR therapy given to baby with genetic disease. "Treatment seems to have been effective, but it is not clear whether such bespoke therapies can be widely applied." Given that the US wants to ban MRNA technology, can banning CRISPR behind?

The First Human to Undergo In Vivo CRISPR 2.0 Personalized Genome Editing. "Potentially a lifesaving intervention with major implications."  This article goes into more detail than the article from Nature.

Not saying it's aliens: SETI survey reveals unexplained pulses from distant stars. "In a recent paper, veteran NASA scientist Richard H. Stanton describes the results of his multi-year survey of more than 1,300 sun-like stars for optical SETI signals. As he indicates, this survey revealed two fast identical pulses from a sun-like star about 100 light-years from Earth that match similar pulses from a different star observed four years ago."

There's a huge Cold War-era nuclear bunker in Ontario 600 feet underground. "Buried 600 feet beneath solid granite in Ontario lies a colossal relic of Cold War military engineering — the NORAD North Bay Underground Complex, better known simply as 'The Hole.' The massive underground fortress was Canada’s front line in the defence of North America at a time when the threat of nuclear war felt imminent. Built at the height of Cold War tensions, the complex stands as the most ambitious and heavily fortified military project in Canadian history." I went on a tour of the SAGE base in 1983; it was seriously impressive.

I Went to Rome to Understand What’s Happening in America. What I Found Was a Warning. "A pilgrimage to the ruins of empire reveals a terrifying truth: America’s democracy is at the tipping point—and Trump is no Marcus Aurelius."

Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us happier.” Absolutely. I much preferred it to having to spend 2-1/2 or 3 hours a day getting to and from the office. 

Ronnie Wood: ‘I was thinking, I want to be in the Rolling Stones. Then a car pulled up with Mick and Charlie’. "Galleries, gigs and grand old friends – the veteran rocker reflects on a life of lucky timing and grit."

For this CVS Health developer, making tech more accessible is personal. "Apple’s ‘Accessibility Nutrition Labels’ will put investments in inclusive design in the spotlight. But Cory Joseph says companies don’t need to be huge to embrace accessibility." These are a really good idea and I hope Google copies them. 

We Finally Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Lasts Thousands of Years. They need to start using this on the Gardiner Expressway. 

JerryRigEverything says 'do not buy' the Pixel 9a despite it passing a stress test. Google has made a bad design decision here and it would keep me from buying it.

Beware SVG graphics used to Bypass Microsoft 365 Security Measures. "SVG and invisible Unicode is being increasingly used to hack Microsoft 365 and Google/Gmail users even with multi-factor authentication (MFA).  It’s possible because of significant enhancements in the Tycoon 2FA platform."

Off for the Weekend

 It's another long weekend up here in the Great No Longer White North. The Monday holiday is known as Victoria Day here in Ontario, though most people call it the May 24 weekend even though it doesn't often fall on that date. A 24 is the colloquial term for a case of beer, which will hopefully be consumed at one's cottage. 

I will be back next week. In the meantime here's a (cherry?) tree in full bloom.

A tree in bloom

The USA versus Canada 7

The relationship between Canada and the US is still strained although there hasn't been as much heated rhetoric as we saw earlier this year and there's still quite a bit of coverage in the Canadian media.. Some trends look like they will be long-term if not permanent, particularly in travel between the two countries. 

Request: I am curious to know how much of this is being reported in US media. I'd appreciate comments with links if you can provide them.

We stand on guard for thee

THE NEW NORTH: Mark Carney Goes To Washington - And He's Not There To Negotiate. "Mark Carney’s first face-to-face with Donald Trump isn’t about diplomacy—it’s about delivering the breakup notice. Canada has moved on."

In a small Alaska town, Canada-U.S. tensions are upending a longstanding relationship. "Skagway has deep roots with the Yukon. A state resolution aims to keep the peace."

Trump Revives Talk of 51st State. It’s Not Funny Anymore. "The US doesn’t need tanks to take over Canada—just trade policy and chaos. Here's how we fight back."

Four decades after it raised the Canadian flag, a small Idaho town fights to keep it flying (gift link), "The banishment and resurrection of the Canadian flag in northern Idaho marks a minor moment in the life of a city of 2,520. But it comes at a time of much broader social and legislative change across the U.S., as conservative states, emboldened by the triumph of Donald Trump in last year‘s election, pursue new measures to stamp out ideas they find distasteful, including the celebration of groups outside heterosexual orthodoxy."

Toronto woman says she was denied entry to U.S. for not having a visa. "A Canadian woman says she missed an awards ceremony for her dad in Brazil after being denied ntry to the United States because she apparently needed a U.S. visa. Ontario resident Nur detailed her stressful experience dealing with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and United Airlines on TikTok." Canadian citizens DO NOT REQUIRE a visa for a 1-1/2 hour stopover in the US on their way to a foreign destination. I don't suppose that having an Arabic sounding name could have had anything to do with it, could it?

New data showing Canadians are avoiding U.S. may be ‘consequential,’ says professor. "A new Statistics Canada report found that Canadian-resident return trips from the United States substantially declined in April, a trend that one professor says reflects the effectiveness of the Canadian movement to boycott American products and travel, in protest of the Trump administration."

Travel over the Canada-U.S. border keeps plummeting. "New data from Statistics Canada found a decline in travel between the countries, both by land and air. In April, 820,700 U.S. residents took road trips to Canada, a 10.7 per cent drop from the same month in 2024. Canadian residents returning from the U.S by land totalled 1.2 million in April (plummeting 35.2 per cent), which StatCan says is a "steep decline" compared to the same time last year."

Sault border traffic drops for third month in a row. "'Everybody's worried about it, but we have no projections on what it's going to do,' said Sault, Michigan official about plummeting cross-border travel."

Canada lures US medical pros with wild promise of "science". "As Trump keeps on Trumpin', those in the United States who can leave the United States are busy trying to leave the United States. One of the most prominent groups looking to fly the increasingly authoritarian coop? Healthcare workers."

Fighting Fires with Technology

Canadian startup and tech news company, BetaKit, has published a guide to wildfires and the tech industry. I found it fascinating to see the various approaches companies are taking to fight wildfires and mitigate their effects.

Every summer, Canada burns. From Kelowna, British Columbia, to Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, wildfires are growing faster, hotter, and harder to fight.

Canadian wildfire agencies spend between $800 million and $1.4 billion each year, a price tag that is compounded by insurance payouts, health care costs, and economic losses.

Abating the human and economic costs of this new reality is a national priority, and an opportunity for Canada to transform its experience into global leadership and opportunity.

Technology is not the only answer, but it is an element of the required response. New tools and approaches are being developed and deployed by Canadian startups, industry, and government, in tandem with the overdue incorporation of centuries of Indigenous knowledge.

As the scale and length of wildfire season continue to grow, Canadian startups and innovators are building technology to help us act earlier, move faster, and protect more ground.

Featured Links - May 12, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Garlic growing at the Crooked Creek Garden Centre

• The New Pope: Who is "Pope Leo XIV" And Why A US Born Progressive Pope Matters in the Age of MAGA. "US Born Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV and he's no fan of Trump's America."
• Habemus Papam Americanum. "The elevation of an American-born cardinal to head the Catholic Church carries significant political meaning.."
• Ontario reports nearly 200 new measles cases as virus spreads across Canada. "Public Health Ontario reports 101 hospitalizations, including 75 children." This was entirely preventable. 
• Russia’s coming summer offensive could be deadliest of the entire war. "In the coming months, Russia is hoping to build on more than a year of gradual advances to achieve breakthroughs on the eastern front, while Ukraine aims to demonstrate to the country’s partners that it is capable of stopping Putin’s war machine and holding the line."
• Satellites Tracked a Volcano’s Secret Collapse for 12 Years – Then It Sparked a Killer Wave. "In 2018, the Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia collapsed catastrophically, generating a deadly tsunami. Now, researchers reveal that the volcano’s flank had been slowly slipping for years—an invisible danger detectable through satellite radar long before disaster struck."
• New theory suggests gravity is not a fundamental force. "A new theory proposes gravity isn’t a fundamental force but emerges from quantum electromagnetic interactions, potentially reshaping our view of spacetime itself."
• “Long COVID Mode”: Seeing the crisis through games. "Games are surprisingly useful communication tools in a world in denial about COVID-19 and Long COVID."
• Loss and Degradation of NOAA Sea Ice and Glacier data. "A very short post on breaking news that will almost certainly impact Alaska and Arctic Climate science and the lives, livelihoods and economics of people."

Photo of the Week - May 10, 2025

 This week's photo is a typical southern Ontario view taken on Highway 28 between Port Hope and Peterborough. It's just a grab shot while we were driving, using my Pixel 8 Pro's 5x zoom.

The genesis of this picture is interesting. The original image was better composed but had a bluyry fence post (blurred by the car's motion) in the foreground. It was seriously distracting.

Original photo

I used Google Photo's integration of Gemini to edit the photo. It was an awkward processs because it's not supported on the desktop. I had to use my phone and though the Pixel 8 Pro is a big phone, it's not big enough for fussy photo editing. I managed to remove the fence post, but only by removing and replacing the entire foreground. The results were, shall we say, mixed. The immediate foreground wasn't too badly done, but farther back closer to the trees, there were obvious digital artifacts. 

AI edited photo with artifacts

I guess I could have tried removing the post and associated wires with Photoshop but I didn't have the time to play with it. So the cropped photo is what I ended up with.

Saturday Sounds - Lady Gaga - 2025/05/05 - Copacabana Beach, Brazil

This week's musical treat is big. Really, really big. It's Lady Gaga performing in front of 2.1 million people at Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazilin Brazil. 

As you might expect given the size of the audience, it's a huge stage production in which the music is almost incidental. Lady Gaga is a talented performer and a very good singer and probably one of the handful of performers who could pull off a show in front of that large an audience.

This is obviously a pro-shot video, probably from a webcast. Enjoy.

(I updated the link after it showed the video had been deleted. It appears to be back up, at least for now). 

Western Alienation

With the election of a fourth Liberal federal government under Mark Carney, there has been a resurgence of Western alienation, particularly in Alberta under the UCP lead by Danielle Smith. There's always been a dislike and distrust of the Federal government in Alberta. It gained traction in the 1970s and 1980s with the National Energy Program and has been slowly building ever since, especially with the Liberal government's environmental focus in the last decade. The election of a UCP government (the closest thing Canada has to the US MAGA movement) hasn't helped.

Here are a few recent articles that I thought were relevant and worth reading, starting with a good overview from the Globe and Mail.

• Western discontent is a growing problem after Liberal election victory (gift link).  "Tens of thousands of Western Canadians have newly registered with the Alberta Prosperity Project, which is collecting the names of people who support a sovereignty referendum.

Next a couple of articles from Jared Wesley, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta.

• Carney's Federalism Dilemma. "The prime minister must choose avoidance or engagement."
• Charting Alberta’s Future. "A Constructive Look at Premier Smith’s “Alberta Accord”

Finally, a rather different perspective on Premier Danielle Smith and her plans for Alberta from Dean Blundell. 

• From MapleMAGA to Treason: Danielle Smith Outlines Plan to Hand Alberta to the U.S. "Alberta’s Premier is rigging the system to ditch Canada, cozying up to Trump and pushing a 51st-state fantasy."
• Danielle Smith’s Alberta Exit Plan: MAGA’s Canadian Traitor or Just Desperate for Attention? "While most Albertans want nothing to do with MAGA or American chaos, Danielle Smith keeps flying to Mar-a-Lago, cozying up to Trump allies, and spending your money to sell Alberta’s soul."

I'll conclude by noting that I livered in Northern Alberta for 5-1/2 years starting in 1978. The feeling that the Western provinces have been wronged by the East is very real and runs very deep. I do not envy Mark Carney right now, having to deal with that and Donald Trump. 

2025 Locus and Aurora Award Finalists

The top ten finalists for the 2025 Locus Awards have been announced. 

The awards will be presented on June 21 in Oakland, CA. 

These are the finalists for the Science Fiction Novel award.

• The Man Who Saw Seconds, Alexander Boldizar (Clash)
• Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom) 
• The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Bezzle, Cory Doctorow (Tor; Ad Astra UK) 
• The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Malka Older (Tordotcom)
• Kinning, Nisi Shawl (Tor) 
• Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK; Orbit US)
• Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom; Tor UK) 
• Space Oddity, Catherynne M. Valente (Saga; Corsair UK) 
• Absolution, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD; Fourth Estate UK) 

It's an interesting list. Tor continues to dominate and the incredibly prolific Adrian Tchaikovsky has two nominations. I've only read one of the books, Corry Doctorow's The Bezzle, which technically isn't science fiction. I did buy Mercy of Gods on sale a while back and will get to it sometime this summer, probably. 

The finalists for the 2025 Aurora Awards have been announced. They are voted on by members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. The winners will be announced in an online ceremony on August 9th. These are the finalists for Best Novel.

• The Tapestry of Time, Kate Heartfield (Harper Voyager)
• Blackheart Man, Nalo Hopkinson (Saga)
• Pale Grey Dot, Don Miasek (Ravenstone)
• The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed (Solaris)
• Withered, A.G.A. Wilmot (ECW)

I've not read any of these, though I am interestedin The Tapestry of Time.

Featured Links - May 5, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Chinatown East, Toronto

Fitting a round peg into a genre-sized hole. "Two authors talk about things not often talked about." Genre has always been a big point of discussion in the science fiction and fantasy field.

New images of Soviet Venus lander falling to Earth suggest its parachute may be out. "The soon-to-reenter Soviet Cosmos 482 Venus probe is getting increased attention by satellite trackers – and new imagery provides some interesting details." 

The Sliding State of the TTC. "Torontonians should expect a high-quality and reliable transit system from our well-compensated, civic and transit leaders, not an unreliable, low-ridership, low-frequency system that you might expect in an American city (outside of New York). The issues with the Toronto subway depress me, and are one of the things that makes me worry about our ability to deliver good transit — and they are likely mostly organizational, not technical." It's sad to see what's been happening with the TTC; transit in Toronto has been declining over the last decade despite several big, new projects.

Markdown and the Slow Fade of the Formatting Fetish. "Year after year, document formats like .docx, .ppt, and pdf lose a little bit of steam. You might not have noticed… But Markdown is growing over and into the old formats, slowly, and nicely, like moss on a stranded star destroyer. Notes on a revolution in slow motion." If I need a text format that preserves some formatting, I prefer to write in HTML. 

Please, for the love of all things holy, update your BIOS. "I don't care if you call this a PSA, an explainer, or even a hot take. If you leave this article and decide it's time to update your BIOS, I've done my job. Despite how useful new BIOS releases can be for your system overall, there's still a reluctance to update unless something has gone seriously wrong with your system. That's outdated advice, and it's high time to address it."

Deep Research with AI: 9 Ways to Get Started. "Practical strategies for thorough, citation-rich AI research." There are some useful tips here.

Step up measles vaccinations, say doctors as outbreaks accelerate in Ontario, Alberta. "Despite surge in measles cases, getting more people immunized hasn't been easy for public health."

My Miserable Week in the 'Happiest Country on Earth' (gift link). "For eight years running, Finland has topped the World Happiness Report — but what exactly does it measure?" I would like to visit Finland, but not as the author did, in February. 

Photo of the Week - May 4, 2025

I thought this was funny. It's the wall outside the Emergency Department at Ajax Pickering Hospital. I guess someone just couldn't wait to get home to get the ECG stickers off of their chest. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

Getting it off your chest

Saturday Sounds - David Essig

Thursday night, Nancy and I braved the pouring rain and the Don Valley Parkway to see David Essig at Hugh's Room in Toronto. I first saw David perform at the Knight II coffee house in Hamilton in the 1970s and then many times since and have been fortunate to meet him in person a few times. He lives on an island in BC now, so getting to see him perform here is a rare and special treat. 

David Essig at Hugh's Room

This performance was something of a career and life retrospective with songs about his childhood, the death of his father, and selections from his albums spanning more than 50 years as well as a few new songs. His singing is still forceful and he's still a facile and delicate guitarist. It was a real pleasure seeing him again and getting to talk with him briefly after the show.

He'll be performing around southern Ontario over the next week and if you can get to see him, it will be money (not a lot) and time well spent.

• Sat, May 3 - Oddfellows Hall, Dundas
• Sun, May 4 - Cuckoo’s Nest, London
• Tues, May 6 - Old Church, Port Ryerse
• Sat, May 10 - House Concert, Kitchener/Waterloo

David is something of a polymath. As well as being one of Canada's best singer/songwriters and an amazing guitarist, he has two volumes of short stories based on his songs, is an accomplished cook and baker, and publishes an online newsletter. In a previous life, he attained a Ph. D in economics and was a Congressional aid before moving to Canada to become a folksinger. 

He's rereleased his first two albums, Redbird Country & High Ground together on a CD and i highly recommend them and his other recordings. 

Movie and TV Reviews - April 2025

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in February. I do these posts mainly so I can keep track of what we've been watching, so the reviews are cursory. Now that baseball season has started, there will probably be fewer items here.

Movies

• A Complete Unknown: Timothée Chalamet is brilliant as Dylan, the supporting cast is excellent, and the movie faithfully captures the feel of the times. We really enjoyed it. (Disney+)

TV Shows

• The Bondsman: A bounty hunter is reincarnated to hunt down and kill demons who have escaped from hell. Nothing too serious here, just fast-paced, light entertainment. Might be a bit gory for some. (Amazon Prime)
• The Wheel of Time (season 3): I found it very hard to pick up the plot after the interval between seasons 2 and 3. It got more comprehensible as the series progressed but it still wasn't always easy to follow. Very well made but there were parts that really bugged me, like the desert scenes. (Amazon Prime)
• Bosch: Legacy (season 3). I enjoyed the original Bosch series but the sequel not so much. I think it's gone on a bit too long. (Amazon Prime)
• Brokenwood Mysteries (season 11): The story of the detective who likes country music continues. (Acorn TV)
• Towards Zero: A cozy, English manor house mystery set in the 1930s and based on an Agatha Christie novel. Sumptuous but slight. (BritBox)
• The Chelsea Detective (season 3): The rest of the season. I wish we'd seen more of Chelsea when we were in London other than just the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial. (Acorn TV)
• Death in Paradise (season 14): The rest of the season, the last one with the Commissioner. (BritBox)

Featured Links - April 28, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

North of the marina

Artificial Intelligence Solves One of Archaeology’s Greatest Puzzles. "AI is unlocking the secrets of the Nazca Lines, revealing 303 new geoglyphs in just six months and reshaping the future of archaeology."

I Study Measles. I’m Terrified We’re Headed for an Epidemic. "Fearing tens of thousands of measles cases in the United States is not an overreaction. It’s a scenario that recently played out elsewhere. Europe, where measles had also been largely eliminated, saw more than 80,000 cases in 2018, driving tens of thousands of hospitalizations and over 70 otherwise preventable deaths. Several countries lost their elimination status." While the outbreak in Texas has been getting news on US media, there are now over 1,000 cases in Ontario with more than 70 people hospitalized. Most are unvaccinated.

Beyond XX & XY—Human Sex And Gender Were Never A Simple Binary. "Humans are more complicated than most online experts think."

Trump is trashing electric vehicles. China is building cars the world wants. "China dominates global EV sales, while U.S. consumers risk getting stuck on an island of outdated technology."

Slate's Big Market Research Experiment. "A new automotive startup called Slate emerged from stealth mode this week and garnered a huge amount of attention for creating what many have been clamoring for — the sort of cheap, electric vehicle that is widespread in China. While Slate is getting lots of coverage and will probably rack up a huge number of $50 reservations in the coming days and weeks, whether that translates into actual sales will be a fascinating market research experiment."

Out of Service: How Wall Street Turned Fire Trucks, Fabric Stores, and Public Safety into Collateral. "Private equity rolls up America’s lifelines while BlackRock quietly funds the collapse with your retirement savings."

Hidden magma cap discovered at Yellowstone National Park. "The magma cap is critical for preventing eruptions at Yellowstone."

What’s the deal with seed oils? "The science and skepticism."

Bondi launches dubious ‘Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias’ in U.S. government. 'Trump administration officials could be focused on “anti-religion bias” within the government, but they’re instead focused only on “anti-Christian bias.”' Seems like Bondi missed the civics class lesson on separation of Church and State. 

'We learned so much that we didn't know': Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander mission was full of surprises. " Lessons learned and on-the-spot surprises from the first fully successful commercial lunar lander mission bolsters the chances of long-term robotic and human operations on the moon."

Photo of the Week - April 27, 2025

It's spring a colder and wetter one than we had last year. We're just starting to see flowers coming up in the yard and my garlic seems to have survived the winter and is growing nicely. Here are some of the first flowers I've seen in our yard. Taken with my Pixel 8 Po.

First spring flowers