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 "China dominates global EV sales, while U.S. consumers risk getting stuck on an island of outdated technology."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

Saturday Sounds - Rick White & The Sadies - Live At The Great Hall September 6, 2024

This week's musical treat is a full concert from one of Toronto's great and (almost) unheralded bands, The Sadies with Rick White. It was recorded at The Great Hall, September 6, 2024 and is a pro-shot, multi-track recording that sounds and looks great. 

From Wikipedia: 

The Sadies are a Canadian rock and roll / country and western band from Toronto, Ontario. The band consists of Travis Good, Sean Dean and Mike Belitsky. Dallas Good, a founding member, died in 2022. Dallas and Travis are the sons of Margaret and Bruce Good, and nephews of Brian and Larry Good, who are members of the Canadian country group The Good Brothers.

In 2024 the band released their first new album recorded without Dallas Good, a collaboration with Rick White entitled Rick White and the Sadies.[15] White, a longtime friend of the band's, had previously recorded his own album of Sadies covers, Rick White Plays the Sadies, in 2022 following Dallas Good's death.

I've never managed to see The Sadies perform, much to my regret. This is 80-plus minutes of excellent guitar-driven rock. Enjoy. 

 

More About Disinformation 7

It's time for another post with links to articles about disinformation and misinformation. There's enough of it about that it's becoming a regular topic on this blog. I do plan on doing a another post next week about a tool I came across that some people might find useful.

• Community colleges have been dealing with an unprecedented phenomenon: fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds. While it has caused chaos at many colleges, some Southwestern faculty feel their leaders haven’t done enough to curb the crisis."
• Scroll through Trump’s new covid website — and have your mind blown. "Scrolling through Trump’s latest foray into history-washing."
• AI Slop Farms Are Churning Out Fake Heartwarming Videos About Trump Figures. "Machine-made YouTube videos are racking up views while fooling the MAGA faithful." I haven't seen any of these myself yet, but I have seen a fair number of posts on Facebook that are just general heartwarming stories, and I'm prertty sure a lot of them are AI slop. 
• Sask. mushroom pickers sound alarm on dangerously misleading AI-generated books. "Amazon says it has removed the books after being contacted by CBC." AI misinformation can kill. 
• Fact file: Ways to spot fake visuals during coming federal election (gift link). "The Globe and Mail will cover topics as they arise. Here is a selection of tools and processes we use that you can also employ."
• Online sabotage (gift link). "Disinformation from abroad is a real danger in a race where Canada-U.S. mistrust is high (gift link). Here’s what the cyber threats might look like." 

Apple iPad Mini: First Impressions

A couple of years ago, I bought an Amazon Fire HD 8 tablet to use as an ereader. It's a good size for that, with a size that's in between my aging Samsung Tab A tablet and my Pixel 8 Pro. (Due to my vision issues, I find reading on my Kindle Paperwhite harder on my eyes than reading on a device with dark mode). But it hasn't been a happy experience as Amazon's forked version of Android and the tablet's slow processor make it frustrating to use. 

There aren't a lot of good, small Android tablets. Samsung has one but they have a bad track record with updates and I don't like their One UI interface. I've read good things about Lenovo's new tablet but it seems to be aimed at gamers, which I am not. So I figured it was finally time to embrace the Dark Side and get an iPad Mini.

The Good

It's a quality machine, almost luxurious, Solid, good looking, and with a beautiful screen (even if it isn't OLED). It's fairly fast, though maybe not quite as quick as my Pixel 8 Pro, but certainly fast enough. 

Apple's IOS is functional and pretty, though as a long-time Android user, it is taking more than a little getting used to. I have the basics figured out. YouTube has been my friend here. 

Since I have a Windows PC and a Pixel phone, I am continuing to use Google's apps like Calendar, Messages, and Keep instead of the equivalent Apple apps. 

I am using Apple News+ since the iPad came with a three month free trial and so far, I love it. I've been using the Libby app to read magazines on my Fire tablet, but News+ is superior in almost every respect though it doesn't have all the magazines  that I like to read. But I like it enough that I will probably pay for the subscription when the trial runs out.  

Apple's Folio cases are very expensive. I bought this Oduio case instead. It's 1/3 of the cost, looks good, and lets me stand the iPad up in both portrait or landscape mode for viewing videos. The feature I really like is the strap on the back so I can hold it securely with one hand while reading.

The Bad

Control Center is a dog's breakfast and the customization process is annoying. I much prefer Android's Quick Settings. I had to watch a video to figure it out and ven then customizing it is fussy. The method used in IOS before version 18 (which I saw in a video) looks like it's much easier. A switch to revert to the old method would be nice.

Battery life is OK but not great. I am may be keeping the screen brightness up higher than need be and will fiddle with that. I enabled the 80 percent charging limit to preserve long-term battery life (I do the same on my phone). Also, I don't know what apps and processes are running in the background. I will have to look at this

As noted above, the screen looks good. I do wish they had enabled a higher refresh rate than 60 Hz. as I can see a bit of jitter in some apps. 

I was disappointed that the iPad Mini doesn't support FaceID. I'm used to opening my phone just by looking at it and miss this on the iPad.

As much as I like Apple News+, it's annoying that I can't set a default font. I much prefer sans serif fonts for reading. Some articles come up in sans serif, others in a serif font. Sizing of fonts is hit or miss between stories. I am going to try to load the Atkinson Hyperlegible font onto the iPad. I doubt that will help with Apple News+ but would be good for my ebooks. 

I really miss not having Google's Reading Mode app, which takes the current screen, strips out all of the extraneous stuff (including ads) and reformats it as plain text. Some searching has revealed that Safari has a reading mode and I may have to start using that, which will mean importing my bookmarks and passwords from Chrome. Google's Reading Mode app works on almost anything, not just web pages.

The Ugly

The inability to resize icon text and things like the system's date, time, and battery percentage at the top of the screen is more than just an annoyance. Come on Apple: you can give us more accessibility options here. 

Apps that don't support Apple's system font size setting are a problem (Google Keep, for example). I've had to set up the Magnifier to deal with that. In fairness to Apple, this may be Google's fault. 

Since I have an Apple Care subscription, I may book an appointment at the Apple Store's Genius Bar to get some help with this.

As has been commented on in almost every review I've read, the bezels are ridiculously large for a current device. 

Featured Links - April 22, 2025

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

I am surprised this shed lasted the winter. 

• Just one exo-Earth pixel can reveal continents, oceans, and more. "Even from a single pixel, multiwavelength data taken over time can reveal clouds, icecaps, oceans, continents, and even signs of life."
  
• Association of self-reported and accelerometer-based walking pace with incident cardiac arrhythmias: a prospective cohort study using UK Biobank. "Average and brisk self-reported walking pace and time spent walking at moderate and brisk pace were associated with a decreased risk of cardiac arrhythmias, in part mediated via metabolic and inflammatory pathways. Our findings suggest brisk walking may be a safe and effective exercise to reduce arrhythmias, especially for higher risk groups."
• The iPhone 16 Pro Max helped me see – with a little help from the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. "Specifically, the 5x telephoto cameras on both flagship phones came in very handy, letting me zoom in on details on the Reichstag or the myriad of street art sprayed onto the walls and buildings of the city. But both phones really helped me and my poor eyes when visiting the Berlin Zoo." 
• DOJ's menacing letter to med journals "a chill down the spine of scientists". It will take a generation to repair the damage that the Trump regime has already done to US science and medicine. 
• 5 services I disabled to improve Windows performance. There are certainly many more services that could be disabled but this is a good start. 
• 'Bad Omen': Ancient Pyramid in Mexico Collapsed Into A Pile of Rubble. Extreme weather events and rising seas are putting precious heritage sites around the world in harm's way. "A stunning example of this phenomenon in 2024 was a stone pyramid in Mexico succumbing to an increasingly chaotic global climate."
• A three-storey home built in just three days? Why this Toronto tear down may hold the key to Canada’s house building strategy (archive link). "Construction of a prefabricated home just off the Danforth shows how the building technique can combat climate change." It's about time and I hope we see more of this. 
• 5 takeaways about NPR's reporting on the whistleblower report about DOGE at the NLRB. The security nightmare continues. IT security people must be tearing their hair out.
• Breakthrough gravity discovery challenges the existence of dark matter. "Richard Lieu offers a theory that could challenge one of the biggest assumptions in astrophysics. His idea: gravity can exist without any mass at all." Yet another theory that aims to eliminate the need for dark matter. 
• No, astronomers almost certainly didn’t find biosignatures of life on another planet. "I’m not even convinced they found the molecules they claim to have found." Some skepticism on recent news from astronomer Phil Plait. 
• Aylmer - The Canadian Soup. A commercial that's now showing on Canadian TV. Take that, Trump!

Taking the Easter Weekend Off

It's Easter weekend and while I don't celebrate it as a religious holiday, it is also a civic holiday here. That's a good excuse to take some time off from blogging and the crazy news cycle. Things have been a bit hectic around here recently so I'm taking Monday off too. I'll be back on Tuesday. 

In the meantime, here's a seagull, Canada's other national bird. 

Seagull standing on a fence post

The USA versus Canada 6

Yet more about the still deteriorating relationship between Canada and the US. 

How to Save Canada. "We’re going to have to work hard—and fast—if we want to avoid becoming Trump’s fifty-first state."

The US Dollar Plummets While the Canadian Dollar Soars: What’s Driving the Shift? "USD/CAD Nears 1.3850 as Economic Fears and Trade/Bond Tensions Grip the US."

Trump’s chaotic rule means we need a growth strategy more than ever. Somebody tell our political leaders. "This week marked the realization among Donald Trump’s business supporters that the fantasy version of Mr. Trump they had been carrying around in their minds bore no relationship to reality."

Canadian university teachers warned against travelling to the United States. 'The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice on Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border. The association says academics who are from countries that have tense diplomatic relations with the United States, or who have themselves expressed negative views about the Trump administration, should be particularly cautious about U.S. travel. Its warning is particularly targeted to academics who identify as transgender or “whose research could be seen as being at odds with the position of the current U.S. administration.”'

California Governor urges Canadians to ignore Trump, come back for sand, sun and wine. "California estimates Canadians are the second-biggest international spenders for its tourism economy, and state tourism officials say visits by Canadians dropped 12 per cent in February compared with the same month last year." If you want California wine and you live in Ontario, you'll have to go the States to get it as the LCBO no longer carries it. 

Nearly 900,000 fewer people went to the U.S. in March as cross-border travel plummets. "Data shows one of worst year-over-year drops recorded outside of COVID-19 crisis."

Trade war starting to show up in higher prices on some grocery items. "Impact on grocery budgets softened by absence of counter-tariffs on many products." We may see higher prices on canned goods because of the US tariffs on Canadian aluminum. 

Liberals revive campaign pitch for centralized military procurement agency. "In the face of annexation threats from the Trump administration and a Canadian public increasingly demanding the federal government buy less from the United States, the Liberals have resurrected a previous campaign pitch to create a standalone defence procurement agency."

Carney’s Silent Power Move: Labeling Trump's America a "National Security Threat" Foreshadows Canada’s Possible Next Steps. "A move that may have flown under the media's radar should be sending shockwaves through the political landscape after the Trump Regime revived his 51st State bullshit yesterday,"

Some Tech Newletters

There are a lot of newsletters focusing on technology. These are some of the ones that I subscribe to.

•  AI Lab Newsletter by Will Knight: "WIRED’s resident AI expert Will Knight takes you to the cutting edge of this fast-changing field and beyond—keeping you informed about where AI and technology are headed. Delivered on Wednesdays."
• Office Watch: This long-running newsletter (founded by the late Woody Leonhard) is essential reading for Microsoft Office users.
• Wonder Tools: One of several newsletters published by Jeremy Caplan. This one features a different tool each week. 
• Windows Intelligence: A decent tech newsletter focusing on Windows and adjacent tools. 
• Android Intelligence: Another newsletter from The Intelligence group, this focusing on Android. I find this one quite helpful. 
• Recomendo: A weekly news-letter full of recommendations for worthwhile things.
• Ask Woody: Another newsletter originally published by the late Woody Leonhard and aimed at Windows and Microsoft Office users. Free users get one free article per week. 

The US Is Becoming a Terror State

Timothy Snyder is an historian who has written extensively on authoritarianism and fascism. He is now teaching at the University of Toronto after having left the United States. 

His latest blog post, State Terror,  outlines, in grim detail, the dark path that the Trump regime is now following. All is not yet lost, as he points out, but it requires action, and soon.

Yesterday the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man who was mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering of this innocent person, and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps.

This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped.

Featured Links - April 14, 2025

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

• This Is What a Digital Coup Looks Like. A TED talk by former Guardian/Observer journalist, Carole Cadwalladr. I highly recommend her newsletter, How To Survive the Broligarchy.
• Either Settle Mars, or Save Earth. "The number of launches needed to colonize the Red Planet is enough to orbit a sunshade that can save Earth from climate change. Why is this even a choice?" Another insightful newsletter post by SF author and futurist, Karl Schroeder.
• Despite all the bad news, life for most has been improving. Despite all the negative things going on in the world, it's not all bad news. 
• Trump’s Authoritarian Iron Fist: DOJ Witch Hunts and the Death of Dissent In America. "The Trump Regime Is No Targeting ANYONE Who Disagrees With Him." If you think Blundell is being hyperbolic, read Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter for April 12. 
• The Breakthrough Blood Test for Alzheimer's Disease. "The p-Tau217 Biomarker for Prediction and Prevention." This is some hopeful news. 
• So You Want to Be a Dissident? "A practical guide to courage in Trump’s age of fear."
• Space solar startup preps laser-beamed power demo for 2026. "Space solar power, or what I like to call Starlink for electricity, is at once a ludicrous idea and a bit of a pipe dream. None of that is stopping Baiju Bhatt from giving it a go."
• 'Bad Omen': Ancient Pyramid in Mexico Collapsed Into A Pile of Rubble. "Extreme weather events and rising seas are putting precious heritage sites around the world in harm's way."

Photo of the Week - April 13, 2025

I think it's time for another cat picture. This is our younger cat, CJ, lounging on a quiet Saturday afternoon. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

CJ

 

Saturday Sounds - Tune Recreation Committee

This week's musical treat comes to you from Cape Town in the form of the Tune Recreation Committee. I don't know much about them other than the members' names: Clement Benny on drums, Nicholas Williams on bass, Keenan Ahrends on guitar, Mandla Mlangeni on trumpet and Mark Fransman on alto saxophone, flute and accordion.

I first heard them on SiriusXM and liked what I heard. They have three albums; the song that I heard was "Malume" from their second album, Afrika Grooves. It reminded me of McCoy Tyner, which is not a bad thing. 

If you like that, there's a very good recording on YouTube of a live gig from July 27, 2017. I have no details other than the date.

 

We're Toast 59

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. 

On the way to the lake

• The Country Most Vulnerable To Air Pollution Right Now Is... The USA. And the Trump regime is making it worse.
• The Threat of Avian Influenza H5N1 Looms Over Global Biodiversity. H5N1 is a threat to more than just birds and humans. 
• In Our New Climate Reality, There Is No Getting Back to Normal. "The media is failing to warn us about the scale of the disasters that lie ahead. In Los Angeles, as everywhere, we need more than liberal technocratic tweaks."
• The Whole World is Whining. "Edelman’s Trust Barometer and the airing of grievances." Angry people do stupid things. 
• We are witnessing the destruction of science in America. "If we stay on this administration’s course, future life-saving medicines may never be invented."
• Is Our Luck Running Out? "Nature is being less helpful with our carbon pollution."
• Is Our Luck Running Out? Part Two. "Oceans failing to protect us from our own heat pollution." 
• Threats to public health at every angle. "Covid anniversary, pandemic revisionism, chronic diseases, and a boulder going down the hill." 
• The Bleak, Defeatist Rise of “Climate Realism”. "It’s not just the Trump administration. Bankers, centrist Democrats, and others are embracing the idea that climate targets were never realistic—and that we should now prepare,ruthlessly, for a new future."
• Russia and China are threatening SpaceX's Starlink satellite constellation, new report finds. "A future conflict in space could have massive, long-term negative repercussions that are felt here on Earth, as everyone on this planet is a user of space data in some form."
• Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer. "Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure." When the insurance companies are worried, it's time to pay attention. 
• ‘The ice is not freezing as it should’: supply roads to Canada’s Indigenous communities under threat from climate crisis. "Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations."
• Scientists Highlight Surprising New Threat to Satellites: Climate Change. "By the year 2100, some parts of Earth orbit may have upwards of 66% less carrying capacity for satellites, according to a new study."

Is Trump's Childish Desire for Attention Driving His Trade War Actions?

This  is a guest post by Kevin Davies, a writer (prose & songs (300+)), artist, graphic designer, game creator and  publisher. 

It was originally posted on Kevin Davies' Facebook page and is posted here with his permission. Copyright 2025 by Kevin Davies. 

COULD THE DESTRUCTION OF GLOBAL TRUST IN THE USA, AND TRILLIONS IN LOSSES, ACTUALLY BE ABOUT TRUMP’S CHILDISH DESIRE FOR ATTENTION?

Setting aside the misguided economic ideas of Peter Navarro, could it be that from Trump's perspective, his actual objective with the imposition of global tariffs is to create a situation where he can obtain the childish, loathsome, narcissistic ATTENTION he craves from other world leaders, by attempting to force them to contact him up then submit and GROVEL, asking what must they do to have the unwarranted and senseless trade-harming actions removed (akin to some sick reality-game show)? 

Though many of Trump’s sycophants have threatened worse 'medicine' if foreign governments respond with their own actual 'reciprocal' tariffs, based on observed behaviour it is likely they will be surprised and annoyed that their rude threats are not heeded. 

It is also likely that Americans will be horrified if many foreign countries permanently shift at least some of their trade away from the USA and toward other markets. 

Indeed, the majority of Canadians polled support trade action and broadening of markets in response to Trump’s unjustified aggression — the original reasons given for the tariffs on Canada: border security, fentanyl, and military spending have been demonstrated to be false. 

INVESTORS DON’T RESPOND WELL TO THREATS

Yet the actual, or at least most recent and cogent, explanation by the Trump administration: that the hostile trade policies are all about arm-twisting US MULTINATIONALS TO ‘RE-SHORE’ INVESTMENT and JOBS is so dim-witted and ill conceived as to be the plot of a Monty Python sketch. 

When US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick acknowledged that any corporations that return manufacturing to the USA would likely use ROBOTS INSTEAD OF WORKERS — because US workers wages can’t compete with workers in developing countries (the reason why multinationals originally left), then offered the suggestion that blue collar workers will somehow retrain en masse to service the robots, he revealed the complete intellectual failure of the entire trade hostility plan. 

If US or foreign multinationals saw any benefit in returning manufacturing plants to the USA — whether using robot or human labour — they would do so without coercion, and would have done so already. The USA could offer subsidies or other benefits to investors and corporations, as they have done in the past, without resorting to any trade actions with foreign countries. 

Indeed, many, especially progressive, observers predicted the destruction of decent paying jobs, communities, and families, due to corporate offshoring. 

The common refrain from economists and politicians was that workers would retrain and acquire new, better paying jobs. Yet, without government funded education and training grants for all those affected, it was just unreasoned economic ‘happy talk’. 

The same assertions can be heard when it comes to the expected mass job losses due to automation and AI.

Also, if the US government was somehow going to train millions of blue collar workers to service automated systems — presumably to encourage multinationals to reinvest in the USA, they would already have done so. Instead Republicans are trying to eliminate the federal Department of Education.

The entire tariff scheme is irrational; tariffs are a TAX ON DOMESTIC IMPORTERS that is passed on to consumers causing price INFLATION and ultimately REDUCED CONSUMPTION and thus a SLOWING of domestic GROWTH. 

The tariff policy merely serves as an opportunity for Trump and his poorly informed manipulated supporters (remarkably still between 30% to 45% of Americans depending upon the issue) to exert a misdirected revenge grievance upon the scapegoated ‘other’. It’s a classic authoritarian tactic.

Unfortunately for those blue-collar, rural, and domestic business Trump supporters, the solution offered by Trump and his team has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PROBLEM. 

Might the tariff actions all be a DISTRACTING SHOW, and a big con — or at least a ‘throw it against the wall a see what sticks’ strategy to humor Trump’s middle and lower class voters — all while raising domestic tax revenues to put toward a massive tax cut for the rich?  

Meanwhile, media attention on tariffs allows for less scrutiny of the attempted implementation of the decades-long Republican conservative project to DESTROY ‘BIG’ GOVERNMENT so that everyone is forced to exist in a libertarian ‘every person for themselves’ low-tax, low-service dystopia that benefits only the wealthy (as long as they can ensure their own safety).

This is the dream of Grover Norquist, darling of conservatives and founder of Americans for Tax Reform (1985), who said he wanted to “Starve the beast,” and: “I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” (Interview on NPR's Morning Edition, May 25, 2001.)

THE ACTUALIZATION OF THE WEALTHY REPUBLICAN DREAM 

What everyone is witnessing today is the decades-long project of Norquist, The Heritage Foundation, the super-wealthy, and their Republican allies come to fruition. Ironically, 48% of Americans, many who rely on government for more aspects of their life than they care to acknowledge, were tricked by Trump’s charismatic and bitter rhetoric and lies into giving the wealthy what they wanted (whether it will ultimately benefit them is another matter). 

The sick ‘patient’ is not just the US economy, it’s the democratic society of the US and all Western countries. How much longer will it take for the real ‘doctors’ to realize that the super-wealthy have been permitted to accumulate too much and their insatiable greed — like a cancer — has spread to the point where they are trying to control and destroy everything in the service of their own limited self-interest. 

Thanks to the actions of the psycopathic wealthy, in many countries democracy is being eroded, mixed-market capitalism has shifted too far toward primarily serving the interests of the wealthy with ‘trickle-down’ supply-side policies, information and news are being made unreliable by algorithms serving commercial and political aims, science and facts are being undermined by irrational beliefs and lies, and the idea of a considerate and caring society that through government policies ensures steady quality of life improvements and equality for all, is for too many a sad joke.

The ‘social contract’ has been broken. Many people are suffering, confused, and uncertain what to do and what is to come. Things are moving fast. Too fast for many well-intentioned politicians and intellectuals. Too many are unfortunately seeking a ‘strong man’ to solve their problems through simple edicts or violence. 

What we are experiencing is not entirely new. Circumstances are much like a century ago. Humanity is again in trouble due to rising inequality and authoritarianism (the two go hand-in-hand), a rapid increase in (military) technology, and a lack of empathy, kindness, and willingness to share by the wealthy (many of whom aren’t even cognizant of the stresses and living conditions of the masses). 

Collectively, we need to WAKE UP to what is happening, reevaluate our society, our economic system, our governments, our policies, our sense of what is reasonable and fair, what type of people we want to lead us, and our fundamental morality (several countries, including the USA have and are still committing and/or supporting Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes with impunity — even as they assert their relative morality while ignoring international law and treaties).  

I sincerely hope we can make the necessary improvements before the wealthy and their sycophants propel us into another global economic, medical, or military disaster. Take care. 

— Kevin Davies, April 10, 2025.

More Newsletters Worth Reading

I posted a while back about some newsletters that I've subscribed to and have been reading regularly. Since then, I've added several to my list of subscriptions. I'm finding them a better source of news and analysis than much of the mainstream media, especially the US media. So here are a few more to look at. 

• Special Intelligence by Malcolm Nance: Nance is a retired US Navy Senior Chief who writes about national security, counter-terrorism, and domestic extremism. His latest post is about possible US plans to attack Iran. I heard about that a couple of days ago and dismissed it as the usual conspiracy theory noise until I read Nance's post about the US deploying a third of its B-2 stealth bombers to the Indian ocean. 
• Dean Blundell describes himself as a "media guy, content provider, dog whisperer, Canadian raconteur, muckraker". His newsletter is mostly about politics. A friend described him as "a bit shouty" but he's worth reading, especially if you're Canadian. 
• Warren's War Room by Warren Kinsella: Kinsella is a Canadian lawyer, author, musician, political consultant, and commentator who has written for a wide range of publications. His coverage of the current Canadian election campaign is quite good.  
• Decoding Politics by Jared Wesley: Wesley is a professor of political science and member of the Black Faculty Collective at the University of Alberta. More Canadian politics, focusing on the Western provinces.
• Paul Krugman: Economics, politics, and finance (mostly) from the Nobel-prize-winning economist and refugee from the New York Times.
• Relix Daily: A newsletter focusing on the jamband and indie music scene.
• Nature Briefing: A daily update on science news from Nature, one of the leading science journals.
• Everything Jazz: The site exists mostly to sell albums but they publish good articles that are highlighted in the newsletter.
• Defending Canadian Democracy by Emmett Macfarlane: "Focused on providing informed analysis of events in Canadian politics and constitutional law in Canada."
• How to Survive the Broligarchy: Political commentary from Carole Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist with the Guardian & Observer.

I will be publishing another list of tech newsletters that I subscribe to next week.

2025 Hugo Awards Finalists

The finalists for the 2025 Hugo Awards have been announced by the Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention. The awards are voted on by attending and supporting members of the Worldcon. The winners will be announced at the convention on August 16. As usual, Locus Magazine has the complete list.

These are the finalists for Best Novel.

• The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape UK)
• The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader; Sceptre)
• A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
• Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US; Tor UK)
• Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom; Tor UK)
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)

It's striking that Adrian Tchaikovsky has two nominations for Best Novel. As far as I can tell, the only Canadian finalist for the fiction awards is Ray Naylor in the Best Novella category; he lives in the US but was born in Canada.

File 770 has published the list with links to where you can read samples or the  complete works for free. All of the Novelette and Short Story finalists can be read online; there are links to samples for the Novel and Novella categories. 

Update: I just read “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” and I will be very surprised and disappointed  if it doesn't win the Best Short Story award. It's a riff on and extension of Ursula Le Guin's classic story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", and it is absolutely brilliant. 

Featured Links - April 7, 2025

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

A floor-cleaning robot

•  Starliner’s flight to the space station was far wilder than most of us thought. "Hey, this is a very precarious situation we're in." This is probably the closest the space program has come to a disaster since Columbia was lost.
• Rewilding Death in the Appalachian Mountains. "A growing conservation burial movement is challenging the funeral industry’s environmental footprint while healing the land."
• A Note on Trade Deficits and Manufacturing, How trade deficits really work, from a real economist.
• Loomered. "Laura Loomer, an online right wing troll once driven from Trump’s side, has reemerged with a vengeance." The inmates have taken over the asylum.
• How to disable ACR on your TV (and why doing it makes such a big difference for privacy). "Smarter TV operating systems bring new privacy risks, with one major concern being automatic content recognition (ACR) - a feature that monitors your viewing habits."
• Inside arXiv—the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science. "Modern science wouldn’t exist without the online research repository known as arXiv. Three decades in, its creator still can’t let it go."
• Human bodies begin breaking down at two very precise ages. "A comprehensive study reveals some eye-opening insights about aging, focusing on exactly “when” things start to shift and how our bodies begin to break down, both inside and out."
• I visited the sprawling 'metroburb' where 'Severance' is filmed. "It's a 2 million-square-foot town under one roof."
• Digital hygiene. A good overview from AI researcher Andrei Karpathy. If you implement even some of what he suggests, you will be more secure online.
• Your data is unwell. "Sharing electronic medical records in Canada is a hassle – and, for some, a health risk. Tech companies and governments are looking for a fix to our patchwork of digital systems."
• COVID didn’t end. Its story just stopped being told. "That Canadians aren’t being supported through known complications of infection is a crisis of the moment, of 2025 – not 2020." The situation is much the same, or worse, in the US. 
• How I wrote the notes app of my dreams (no coding required). "The new phenomenon known as vibecoding lets you describe an app and have AI build it to your specifications. The results astounded me." 

Photo of the Week - April 6, 2025

This week's photo is of a now almost forgotten piece of technology, the pay phone. This bank of phones is located in the Toronto Dominion Centre in downtown Toronto. I noticed it while walking through the PATH network on Friday and just had to grab a picture with my phone. I was surprised to see the¢m; who knows how much longer they'll be there? I didn't check for a dial tone but they do seem to be working; the display panel says "Please lift receiver, calls 50￠".

Pay phones in the TD Centre

Saturday Sounds - Miles Davis - Bag's Groove

This week's musical treat is a Miles Davis album that I had never heard until recently. Bag's Groove is the recording of a stellar session featuring not just Miles but Thelonious Monk, Sony Rollins, Milt Jackson, Horace Silver, Percy Heath, and Kenny Clarke. I found out about it from the Everything Jazz newsletter.

But the second recording session for “Bags Groove” has gained a reputation as one of jazz’s most notorious. Weinstock claims he only brought Miles and piano pioneer Thelonious Monk together on Christmas Eve 1954 because they had separately complained to him of being in urgent need of some holiday money. The result was two takes of the title track, named for its composer Milt Jackson, both of which feature what many commentators cite as some of the best solos Miles ever committed to vinyl.

Still, everyone from Ira Gitler to Charles Mingus has claimed that Monk and Miles nearly came to fisticuffs when Miles asked Monk to “lay out” (not play) underneath his solo. But Miles confirms in his autobiography that he was just looking for more space in his music, and that Monk would have played that way anyway.

The result is simply one of jazz’s key compositions, as singular and memorable as “Stolen Moments”, “Blue Train” or “Song For My Father”. On take one, Miles’s sublime solo stops time, though he’s not afraid of “out” notes and includes a famous, much-imitated lick at 10:00 (repeated during the second take). Meanwhile Monk’s solo is audacious in its minimalism and obtuseness. Take two has noticeably better sound quality, Clarke’s cymbals brighter and Heath’s bass with more low-end, while Monk plays twice as many notes as he did on take one.

I've probably heard some of Bag's Groove before this but it never registered. It has now. It's definitely a classic of 1950's jazz and some of the best music that Miles recorded. Enjoy.

The USA versus Canada 5

It's time for more posts about the hottest topic in Canadian news right now. It seems that Canada got off lighter than many people expected in Trumps tariff announcement, but now he's taking on the whole world. What a fucking mess!

• Prominent Yale professors flee Trump’s America for new roles at University of Toronto (archive link). "Philosophy Prof. Jason Stanley will be transferring in a few months, joining Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore." As the article points out, there are others coming north, and there will be many more. 
• Is Canada Treating Trump’s Annexation Threat Seriously Enough? "We can’t cling to the belief things will return to normal." If he goes after Greenland, then we'll know he's serious about Greenland.
• Environmental comeback of Great Lakes at risk with Canada and U.S. in tariff turmoil (gift link). "But the Trump administration’s combative stand on binational relations – coupled with deep job cuts to U.S. civil servants dedicated to Great Lakes initiatives – have strained the partnership and put the region’s hard-won environmental progress at risk." For example, the idiots in DOGE have laid off people from the lamprey control initiative. This is nightmare fuel, especially if you've ever seen a lamprey.
• Worthwhile Canadian Observations. "About a “boring” country that definitely isn’t." Some things about Canada that Americans should learn. 
• Canada’s New US Travel Warning: Leave Your Phone, Grab a Burner, and Maybe Skip the U.S. Altogether. "Canada’s government just updated its travel advisory for the U.S., and it’s not your usual “pack a sweater” memo. Immigration lawyers are advising Canadians to leave our smartphones at home, pick up a burner phone, and seriously consider staying north of the border. Why? Things south of the 49th are getting messy, and Canadians—along with a few other countries—are taking notice." Yes we are. I just read that traffic across the international bridge in Sault Ste. Marie was down 30 percent in March.
• Trump’s Big "Fentanyl" Lie About Canada Just Got Exposed— US Senators Are Lining Up For Canada on Tariff Day And Trump Is Furious. "Some US Senators Are Fighting to Stop His Fentanyl Tariffs—Here’s Why."

TV Garden

A few years ago, I posted about Radio Garden, a wonderful website that lets you listen to almost any radio station in the world in real time.

Now there's TV Garden, a website that lets you watch television from around the world. It works something like Radio Garden; you select a country from the globe and you get a list of TV stations for that country. It's not as polished as Radio Garden in the sense that you can't select individual stations from the map. I'm guessing that's because so many TV stations and networks these days aren't tied to specific locations. The list isn't complete either; for example, for Canada it only shows the CBC News Network but doesn't show local CBC stations, though it does for City-TV. 

TV Garden with Canada selected

You can search for a specific network or station and if you click on the 3-bar button on the left it opens a menu that lets you select stations by category; for example, Science or News. No sports though, which makes sense because they'd probably get taken down in about 30 seconds if they offered that.

There's no Android app yet (there is for Radio Garden). But it will be handy, especially if you want to watch news from another country. (That's limited in usefulness by language, of course. Perhaps our AI tools will evolve enough that something like Gemini will do the live translation for use). 

I like it and will be using it in the future. 

2024 Analog AnLab and Asimov’s Readers’ Awards Finalists

Each year the readers of two of the three remaining science fiction digest magazines get to vote on their favourite stories. The editors of Analog and Asimov's have announced the finalists for the Analog Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) and the Asimov's Readers' Awards.

As usual, they've kindly put most of the finalists up on their websites so you can read them without charge.

These are the Analog AnLab finalists for Best Novella.

Ganny Goes to War, David Gerrold, March/April 2024

Minnie and Earl Have a Kitten, Adam-Troy Castro, September/October 2024

The Last Days of Good People, A.T. Sayre, July/August 2024

Uncle Roy’s Computer Repairs and Robot Parts, Martin L. Shoemaker May/June 2024

The are the Asimov's Readers' Poll finalists for Best Novella.

Death Benefits, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, November/December 2024

Death and the Gorgon, Greg Egan, January/February 2024

Proof of Concept,  Kristine Kathryn Rusch, January/February 2024

Une Time Machine S’il Vous Plait, Peter Wood, March/April 2024

Wildest Skies, Sean Monaghan, November/December 2024

Movie and TV Reviews - March 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

• Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop: A cozy mystery. Meh. (Amazon Prime)
• Anora: This year's Best Picture Oscar winner about a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. It's a good movie and we enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it deserved all the awards that it won (except for Best Actress). (Amazon Prime)

TV Shows

• The Oscars: I'm not sure why we watched this as we've only seen one of the nominated films. It wasn't the best of the Oscar shows but it wasn't the worst either. It was about an hour too long. 
• Sherwood (season 2): This takes place ten years after the first season. It's even grimmer and I didn't find the characters as likeable. Still very good. (BritBox)
• Prime Target: A entertaining if somewhat implausible thriller about a mathematician who discovers a way of discovering patterns in prime numbers, making it possible to crack any encryption. (Apple TV+)
• Law and Order Toronto (season 2): The plots are sometimes interesting when they're built on Toronto events but the show is too formulaic. It would be much better if the episodes were longer like most of the British shows. (City TV)
• A Remarkable Place to Die: A police procedural set in New Zealand. The lead detective gets away with some stuff that would get most people fired but it's still quite watchable and the South Island scenery is spectacular. (Acorn TV)
• Reacher (season 3): Light entertainment. Not too gory. Not too serious. Some of it filmed in a Pickering backlot. (Amazon Prime)
• Death and Other Details: Stylist, light, and just complicated enough to be interesting. A bit meta too, which I like. (Disney+)