Featured Links - July 7, 2025

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

A hydrangea in our backyard

• 745 km from civilization: Exploring North America's most isolated road. "Quebec's Trans-Taiga Road ends at a point so remote that a broken tire might require an emergency plane landing to deliver a replacement." This definitely not a trip I will be making. 
• The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars' Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding. "The Anti-Autocracy Handbook is a call to action, resilience, and collective defence of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism. It tries to provide guidance to scholars navigating the growing global trend of democratic backsliding and autocratization, in particular in the U.S." This may be useful to more than scholars. 
• “This Plane Just Did the Impossible”: Historic Supersonic Flight Silences the Sky with Zero Sonic Boom for First Time Ever. "The aviation industry witnessed a monumental breakthrough on February 10, 2025, as Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 aircraft accomplished what many experts deemed impossible. Flying over the Mojave Desert at speeds exceeding the sound barrier, the aircraft achieved something unprecedented in aviation history: supersonic flight without generating a sonic boom. This revolutionary achievement has opened new possibilities for the future of air travel." 
• A London Dentist Just Cracked a Geometric Code in Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. "A hidden triangle in the vitruvian man could finally explain one of da Vinci's greatest works."
• A Runestone That May Be North America’s Oldest Turns Up in a Canada Forest. "Researchers spent years quietly studying a stone carved with 255 runes and the image of a boat found in Ontario. Now, revealing the stone’s existence, they’re asking the public for help."
• Bogged down (gift link). "Ireland’s peat trade fuels conflict with Europe over climate and conservation." Excellent and well illustrated article. 
• Why Pasta Tastes Better at Restaurants, According to a Former Line Cook. "No need to reach for more salt or even fat to achieve restaurant-quality pasta at home; instead, follow these simple yet effective steps for perfect pasta." I have yet to cook the perfect pasta meal, but I will keep trying.
• Britain’s Three Week Failure to Fix Stranded F-35 in India Provides an Opportunity For Russia’s Su-57 Stealth Fighter. I think it would be a very good thing if Canada scrapped plans to buy any F-35s, 

Photo of the Week - July 6, 2025

We're having a blooming great summer right now up here in the Great Green North. This is a clump of daisies in our front yard. If we had a bigger front yard, I'd plant some tomatoes as it gets a lot more sun than the backyard. But the daisies are prettier and they sure do glow in the sunlight. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Daisies

Saturday Sounds - Blackie And The Rodeo Kings at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2022

I've posted here before about Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, a Canadian roots music supergroup whose members include Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing, and Tom Wilson. They started as a project to record a tribute album to the late Willie P. Bennett and ended up becoming a hugely successful group.  

I've seen them perform a couple of times, most recently last night at an outdoor concert promoted by Music by the Bay Live in Uxbridge at their "Blues Holler" site. Both performances were outstanding and among the best I've seen in the last decade. Last night's concert was about as perfect an evening of music as one could hope for: perfect weather, excellent sound, great music, and a beautiful outdoor setting.

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings

The Blues Holler

So this week's musical treat is Blackie and the Rodeo Kings' performance at the  Shrewsbury Folk Festival in the UK in 2022. (Setlist here). It's an official recording from the festival, who put many of their concerts up on YouTube and features first-rate sound and pro-shot video. And of course the music is wonderful.

Unfortunately, YouTube has blocked playback on other sites, so I can't embed it here. You'll have to click this link. Trust me, it's worth it.

Movie and TV Reviews - June 2025

Movies and TV shows that Nancy and I watched in June. 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

• 
  

TV Shows

• The Art Detectives: A police procedural about art theft and fraud. Definitely on the lighter side of the genre but enjoyable. (The documentary series, Art Dectives, is better.) (Acorn TV)

Happy Canada Day

It's Canada Day up here in the Great Green North. The flowers in our backyard are loving the warm weather though I suspect they would like a bit more rain. The garden is happy and with any luck we might get some tomatoes this year. 

So a BBQ, beer, and fireworks today as we celebrate all things Canadian. 

Here's some colourful natural fireworks from our backyard.

Backyard flowers

Featured Links - June 30, 2025

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

This week's post is shorter than usual. We have a kitchen reno coming up in a week and I'm pretty busy right now. And there's a yard and garden to take care of. So posts here are going to be shorter and/or sparser than usual for a while.

Birds in the hydro marsh

• Are these the world’s oldest rocks? Fresh data confirm contested claim. "Scientists debate age of ancient Canadian crust as Inuit leaders work to preserve the location."
• Photographer Captures the Terrifying Things Humans Have Done to the Planet.  "Photographer Edward Burtynsky has dedicated his life’s work to documenting the impact humans have on the planet, producing stunning photographs that evoke both awe and concern. This week has marked the start of a career-spanning exhibit of Burtynsky’s work at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York." I have seen several exhibitions of Burtynsky's photographs and if you can get to see this show in person, do so, as they have much more impact in a gallery setting.
• Could the Semicolon Die Out? Recent Analysis Finds a Decline in Its Usage in British Literature and Confusion Among U.K. Students. "Not only are semicolons evidently becoming more rare, but young people are less aware of how to use them, according to a survey."
• Why We Need Horror Authors in the Fight For the Freedom to Read. "Please note: this speech was directed at Horror authors, but I hope all of my readers use it as a template to speak to their community members about the importance of speaking out for the freedom to read and use the "how-to" component in the speech to give them the tools they need to take action."
• The Concorde-and-Caviar Era of Condé Nast, When Magazines Ruled the Earth. "Opulent days are over at Vogue, Vanity Fair and other once-powerful glossies. Anna Wintour is giving up (some) control. Now that everyone’s a gatekeeper, why do we keep recreating their status-obsessed world?"

Photo of the Week - June 29, 2025

Nancy and I walked down to the lakefront Friday evening and there were a couple of swans in the marina lagoon. I managed to get a picture of one flapping it's wings  before it ducked underwater in search of food. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro. 

A swan flapping its wings preparing to dive

Saturday Sounds - Tyreek McDole - Open Up Your Senses

This week's musical treat is a new album from a young performer who is new to me, Tyreek McDole. I was listening to SiriusXM and heard what I first thought was Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan", but it wasn't Pharoah's version, a piece of music I've been listening to for more than 50 years. Instead, it was a track from McDole's debut album, Open Up Your Senses. 

From the label's press release announcing the album:

At just 25 years old, the Haitian-American, New York-based baritone has already earned significant acclaim, including winning the prestigious Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition in 2023 — one of only two male vocalists to achieve this honor in the competition’s 12-year history. Jazz scholar Will Friedwald, who also contributes liner notes to the project, referred to McDole as “the leading jazz voice of his generation” and acclaimed DJ Gilles Peterson said “it is refreshing to hear a new voice that is so clearly connected to the tradition but also pushing it forward with such strong energy. This is a brilliant opening statement from someone I reckon will be around for some time.”

Open Up Your Senses is a bold statement from a young artist who masterfully blends tradition with innovation. Featuring standout performances by pianist and arranger Caelan Cardello and saxophonist Dylan Band, McDole’s debut evokes the legacy of jazz greats while forging his own distinctive path.

The album’s repertoire highlights McDole’s penchant for spiritually resonant and philosophically rich material. His stirring rendition of Leon Thomas’ “The Creator Has a Master Plan” features a powerful solo from Tomoki Sanders, progeny of saxophone legend Pharoah Sanders. Meanwhile, his interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty” (with lyrics by Mike Ferro) is enhanced by a special guest appearance from legendary pianist Kenny Barron.

I'm not usually a big fan of jazz singers, but I like this album a lot. The tracks feature a talented group of musicians playing in a variety of styles and McDole is a compelling singer. Enjoy. 

The USA versus Canada 8

The relationship between Canada and the US is and contin
uing to change. It's clear that Prime Minister Mark Carney is determined to reduce Canadian dependence on the US and he seems to have the support of most Canadians and Parliament. Here are some articles covering what's happened over the last month. 

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. 

Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor

Nation-Building in the North from science fiction author and futurist, Karl Schroeder. "Canada is reconfiguring itself as a strategic global power. How does that work?" I hope that people in Carney's administration are reading Schroeder. (As an aside, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois reads Robert J. Sawyer.)

Republicans say tax retaliation proposal could be cut from Trump bill if international deal can be reached. "The provision would impose a progressive tax burden of up to 20 per cent on foreign investors’ U.S. income, raising concerns on Wall Street about the attractiveness of U.S. investments." If dividend income from US stocks held by Canadian investors starts getting taxed, there is going to be a big sell-off here. 

Trump's 'revenge tax' on other countries could hit U.S. "Tax that could hit Canadians comes with risk to U.S. revenue, investments."

American Climate Scientists Have a New Canadian Hero. "How McGill professor Juan Serpa created SUSAN, the online forum helping U.S. researchers protect their data from Trump."

Last Year's Move to Toronto And This Year's Politics (video and commentary) from historian and author, Timothy Snyder, one of the many academics who have moved from the US to Canada. 

The US Badly Needs Rare Minerals and Fresh Water. Guess Who Has Them? "As China tightens its grip on critical resources, Trump eyes Canada’s riches."

Canada Torches the Trump Umbilical Cord: Bill C-5 Passed, EU Trade/Security Partnership Signed, and Our Democratic Break From America Begins. "A Historic Pact with the EU Signals Canada’s Rise as a Sovereign Power—and a Sharp Rejection of Trump’s Tariff Bullying and War-First Chaos." Blundell can be a bit hyperbolic (a friend described him as 'shouty') but if you are interested in this subject, he's worth following. 

Fact Checking "Cosplay Kristi" Noem's Latest Canada Smear. "No, Governor Noem—Canada Isn't a Narco-State, Trudeau Never Worked With You, and Fentanyl Isn’t Flowing North."

2025 Locus Awards Winners

The winners of the 2025 Locus Awards Winners have been announced. The awards are voted by subscribers and readers of Locus Magazine, the SFF field's long-running newsmagazine.

These are the winners of the fiction awards.

Science Fiction Novel: The Man Who Saw Seconds, Alexander Boldizar 

Fantasy Novel: A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher

Horror Novel: Bury Your Gays, Chuck Tingle 

Young Adult Novel: Moonstorm, Yoon Ha Lee 

First Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell 

Novella: What Feasts at Night, T. Kingfisher

Novelette: “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars“, Premee Mohamed 

Short Story: “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole“, Isabel J. Kim

Someone You Can Build a Nest in won the 2024 Nebula Award for Best Novel. 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 has won a Nebula Award and now a Locus Award. It's a remarkable story that works on many levels. 

Featured Links - June 23, 2025

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

Flowers in our backyard

The MAGA Debt Bomb. "How Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Turns America’s Fiscal Crisis Into a Weapon for Authoritarian Looting." The adults in the financial world are getting worried.

FEMA is unprepared for the next Hurricane Katrina, disaster experts warn. "Cuts, chaos, and climate change are converging to leave Americans more vulnerable to disaster than they were in 2005." 

How the Grateful Dead built the internet. "Before the the internet took over the world, psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead were among the first – and most influential – forces at the dawn of online communication." Fascinating history showing how music an culture intersected with the early digital revolution, focusing mostly on The Well. I was never on The Well but made extensive use of rec.music.gdead on Usenet once I got onto the real internet in the early 90s. 

'They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers. "In a deep dive focusing on one farmer who voted for Trump, 36-year-old J.J. Ficke of Kirk, Colorado, the Washington Post is reporting that he along with other farmers are facing possible ruination now that the round-up of immigrants have begun in earnest and promised helpis uncertain."

New study suggests Long COVID is now most common childhood chronic health problem. "In a summary of the study's findings geared to the general public and published on the JAMA Pediatrics Patient Page, three of the authors of the longer study state that Long COVID is common, and, based on the larger study's finding, estimate that up to 10 to 20 percent of children who have had COVID-19 — even "mild" or asymptomatic initial infections — develop Long COVID. This translates to about six million children with Long COVID, which, the authors explain, "is higher than the number of children with asthma, the most common chronic health problem in children."'

1 psychedelic psilocybin dose eases depression for years, study reveals. "Half a decade after receiving a psychedelic treatment for depression, two-thirds of patients in a new study remained in remission."

New theory proposes time has three dimensions, with space as a secondary effect. "Time, not space plus time, might be the single fundamental property in which all physical phenomena occur, according to a new theory by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist. The theory also argues that time comes in three dimensions rather than just the single one we experience as continual forward progression. Space emerges as a secondary manifestation."

Interview: Craig Federighi Opens Up About iPadOS, Its Multitasking Journey, and the iPad’s Essence. As a new iPad user, I found this quite fascinating. 

How should we respond to people “doing their own research?”. "It’s become a punchline—but it points to something broken in how we share health information."

Narrative Theory for Science Communication by author Mary Robinette Kowal. "In this workshop, we learn how to use the foundations of storytelling to help you be more successful with science communication. Pretty much every story, fictional or nonfictional, can be explained through a fairly simple organizational theory. Together, we learn how to use these tools to connect more effectively with your audiences."

Photo of the Week - June 22, 2025

It looks like the switch from (a somewhat cool) spring to a (hot) summer has finally been thrown and everything outside is in bloom or growing. These are some flowers in my backyard. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Geraniums with buttercups

Saturday Sounds - Aysanabee - Edge of the Earth

This week's musical treat is a new album from Canadian indigenous artist Aysanabee. 

The Globe and Mail has this to say about it: 

Aysanabee has been a staple of Canadian rock radio since his debut LP Watin and follow-up EP Here and Now came out in 2022 and 2023 respectively, bringing with them inescapable songs, including Nomads and Somebody Else. With his sophomore LP on the horizon, the Oji-Cree musician is poised to become a household name, if songs such as Home and the title track get the listeners they deserve.

I like this album a lot. He mixes traditional indigenous musical themes with a modern pop sensibility to create gorgeous soundscapes with anthemic melodies and powerful lyrics. It's going on my favourites playlist.  

SpaceX Blows Up a Starship

SpaceX just had a big oops. The Starship second stage blew up on the test site, just before a static fire test. From the video, it looks like the failure occurred in the upper part of the ship with propellant venting at the top, then igniting resulting in a very  impressive fireball and complete destruction of the ship. No one was injured at the test site but the ground equipment is probably toast.

This is going to set the launch program back for quite a while and probably means they won't be able to launch to Mars in 2027.

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."