Been Busy

You may have noticed that posts have been sparse the last week or two. Nothing bad has happened; I just seem to be too busy to post much. I'll have more posts next week.

I may change my posting routine. I've been trying to keep to sort of a schedule with a Featured Links post every Monday or Tuesday and a couple of other posts on the weekend, with various subject-related items in between. I may start doing the link posts when I have enough  interesting links to fill them and not on a fixed schedule. 

In the meantime, here's a cat picture. This is CJ. 

CJ relaxing

c

Saturday Sounds - Tedeschi Trucks Bamd with Leon Russell - Mad Dogs and Englishmen Live at LOCKN' 2015

 Here's some joyous music to get you started for the weekend. 

Ten years ago, the LOCKN' Festival featured the Tedeschi Trucks Band playing the full Mad Dogs and Englishmen album with a bunch of the original musicians, including Leon Russell. It's an amazing performance and it's now been officially released . I  don't know if there will be a video release, but the audio recording is out. It's absolutely wonderful, truly one for the ages. 

Relix Magazine has a long interview with Derek Trucks talking about it if you're interested.

Canada Fights Back and Why

The Canadian press has done a lot of reporting on how Canada is responding to Trump's trade war but not so much on Canadians' response to his administration's fascist takeover of the US government. That doesn't mean there is no response.

In Toronto recently, a group calling themselves Canada First, and clearly patterned on the US extreme right, held a rally (or more accurately tried to hold a rally) in Toronto's Christie Pits park, site of an infamous antisemitic riot in 1933. They were outnumbered 10 to 1 by anti-fascist demonstrators. 

The win last weekend was straightforward. Neighbours showed up, beat drums, chanted “Fascists go home,” and starved the rally of clean footage. City officials called it what it was—a hate demonstration—and community organizers delivered a family‑friendly counter‑rally that kept the energy non‑violent and the message unmistakable. Police reported ten arrests tied to the dueling events. And then everyone left, leaving the organizer to get pissed off that not enough Groypers and racists showed up. LOL.

 ...

 Canada First tried to plant violence and American grievance in a Canadian park with a Canadian historical memory of fighting back. Toronto—regular people with flags, drums, and kids in tow, not “left wing lunatics”—showed that our democracy does not make space for ethnic‑cleansing euphemisms or white‑supremacist cosplay.

That is what patriotism looks like here.

Charlie Angus published an article that looks at Canadian patriotism from a historical perspective. 

In the years since the Group of Seven, Canada has become a multiracial, multinational country that is increasingly urban. Our diversity is also part of who we are as a nation.

But we are, at our core, still children of the wild north. The reality of life in such a land is so that we could never survive without our trust in each other.

In Canada, there is little room for the rugged individualist. Mr. Marlboro Man wouldn't last long here; he wouldn't be able to push his vehicle out of the snowbank without asking someone for help.

Canadians have survived because we understand that we have to rely on neighbours.

Its a lesson that our neighbours to the south seem to have forgotten. 

 

 

 

I Miss Byte

It's been noted on some of my social media feeds and a couple of podcasts that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Byte magazine. 

For those of you too young to know what magazines are, and especially computer magazines, Byte was THE computer magazine. It featured both technical (often highly technical) articles, reviews by reviewers and columnists you could trust, news about computing, networking, and eventually the internet, and ads, lots of ads. 

There was a time when I would haunt the local newsstand waiting for the latest issue to arrive. My first point of entry would always be Jerry Pournelle's column, 'Computing at Chaos Manor'. 

At it's peak in the mid 1980s, an issue of Byte could be more than  500 pages. For example, the February 1984 issue, featuring the first Apple Macintosh on the cover, was 548 pages. For a while, it was probably one of the largest mass-circulation magazines. Unfortunately, it didn't last and ceased print publication in 1999, though a pale version of the original survived online until 2006. 

The Internet Archive has the full print run of Byte from 1975 to 1999, with a very nice viewer that makes it easy to browse through issues.  Fair warning: if you have any interest in computing, this could be a serious time sink,

Featured Links - September 16, 2025

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

Swans on the bay

• COVID-19 infections impair our immune systems for months or even years. "Even mild cases can lead to serious health problems years later."
  
• Alien: Earth—how realistic are the extraterrestrials? Three experts rank them. I haven't watched this show, yet, and after reading this I'm not sure I want to.  Eewww. 
• Building an Octopus Dictionary, One Arm Movement at a Time. "Scientists set out to understand all the ways the animals use their eight appendages. It wasn’t easy." Communicating with octopuses is one of the major story threats in Ray Nayler's excellent SF novel, The Mountain in the Sea.
  
• Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Overview Summaries. Based on my own experience, I think the publisher has a point.  
• Who Are Smith's Best Supporters? "A small but vocal group of true blue God fearing Conservative Alberta First believers called the Petro Paranoids."
• The Dangerous In-Between: Assassination, Fascism and the Fragile State of Democracy. "The exploitation of the Kirk murder fits a disturbing pattern: extremists need martyrs. It is how they keep the coalition of ragers, grifters and conspiracy haters in the same tent. And the people who would point out that Kirk himself drove the politics of hate? They’re being targeted, doxxed, and in some cases fired."
• How Apple has trained its AI to respond to Trump’s nonsense: report. "A new report examines how the Apple Intelligence has evolved since Trump once again became U.S. president."

Photo of the Week - September 14, 2025

This week's photo is another picture of swans on Frenchman's Bay. I wouldn't say that I am obsessed with swans, but there are a lot of them around here, and they are very photogenic. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro using the 5x telephoto lens.

A swan quartet

Saturday Sounds - McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson - Forces of Nature, Live at Slugs'

For this week's musical treat, it's back to jazz. I've been a fan of McCoy Tyner ever since being introduced to Coltrane's classic quartet in the 1960s. I've been fortunate to see him perform three times and met him once after his gig at the Purple Onion in Toronto in the early '90s, possibly the best live jazz performance I've seen.

So today we have a lost album that's made it's way out of the vaults into the world,  Forces of Nature:, Live at Slugs' with the incredible lineup of McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Henry Grimes, and Jack DeJohnette. This is a recoding of an amazing performance that took place in 1966. From Everything Jazz:

For over half a century, the recording languished in DeJohnette’s personal archives, until it came to the attention of renowned producer Zev Feldman. Known as the Jazz Detective, Feldman has been a driving force behind a slew of vital archival releases such as the 2021 posthumous addition to John Coltrane’s catalogue, “A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle.”

 “This has got to be one of the most exciting projects that I’ve ever been involved with,” he says. “From the first time I heard these recordings, I knew that there was something so extraordinary about them. My jaw was on the floor. When you talk about McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, it seems like we just oftentimes reach for the same records by them over and over. This release is like unearthing a whole new chapter. These musicians are playing at such a high level of intensity and the energy is off the charts. I think it’s probably one of the most incredible live jazz documents that we’ve ever heard.”

If your taste in jazz runs to soft supper club ballads this album won't be for you. It's mostly fast-paced and intense. As for me, I wish I could have been there. 

The US versus Canada 10

It's time for links to a few more articles about the continuing contretemps between Canada and the US. There are no signs that the situation is improving and I don't expect it to as long as the Trump administration remains in power.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 17, 2020

Trump’s Attacks on the Climate Are an Opportunity for Canada. "The US was never really a clean energy leader. Can Ottawa step in?" Unfortunately, Carney seems to be paying only lip service to greenhouse gas reduction goals. 

Alberta Separatists Say Trump Regime Offered Them $500,000,000 “Loan” To Break Up Canada. 'Alberta’s separatist circuit is bragging about a half-billion-dollar “transition loan” they say was discussed with Trumpworld in Washington. Seditious if true...' I've seen other articles describing links between Alberta separtists and the US extreme right. 

U.S. orange juice shipments plummet as Canadians find Florida OJ hard to swallow. "Tropicana might cost $13.99 but Canada-processed brands are typically half that." Canadian apple juice is a good alternative. 

Canada on Notice: The Attack on International Law Is an Attack on Canada. "It is notable that Trump has lifted sanctions on Russian kleptocrats but is imposing them on the International Criminal Court. And a Canadian judge. He backs it up with the leg-breaking threat to "take whatever steps are necessary" to get his way. We are in the age of gangsters. Canada has been put on notice."

A Canadian Whisky Brand May Move Bottling to the U.S. A Union Blames Trump. "Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, appeared at a news conference this week at a factory in Kitchener, Ontario, with an unusual prop: a crown-shaped bottle of whisky." You would think a Canadian brand would know better.

Ken Dryden’s Warning: A Powerful Last Testament From a Great Canadian. "Dryden used the game to write less about hockey and more about the nature of politics in the age of gangsters. He wrote a devastating critique of the failure of leaders to stand up to Trump, hence paving his way for anti-democratic behaviour."

 Las Vegas Mayor Called a Press Conference Begging Canadians to "Come Back" Yesterday. Yeah, No... Ten reasons why Canadians aren't travelling to the US. 

Featured Links - September 9, 2025

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

Some backyard flowers

• Setting Type. "Exploring book cover layout from the illustrator's perspective." An article by the great cover artist, Michael Whelan. 
  
• 20 Years of "Being Poor". A post by John Scalzi reflecting on one of his most-read posts that sadly is still relevant. 
• Who Is Mark Carney, Really? "We hired the guy with the best résumé. He’s now using power in ways few other prime ministers have dared." I am concerned about his stance on environmental matters. 
• Why Does the Right Reject Progress? "The perverse push to make America miserable again." A post by economist Paul Krugman, that ties into the next article. 
• Science Under Siege: A Talk With Peter Hotez and Michael Mann. "Lysenko comes to America. Peter Hotez, who has done yeoman work defending vaccines, and Michael Mann, a hero of the climate change wars, have a new book about the assault on science. I spoke with them and emerged both enlightened and frightened."
• The More Astronomers Watch Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS, the Weirder It Gets. No, it's not an alien probe, but it is strange. 

Photo of the Week - September 7, 2025

This week's photo is not a Jackson Pollack painting. It's a picture of the floor in our kitchen before the new flooring was installed. I like the randomness. The new flooring is an improvement but I wouldn't put a picture of it up on my wall. This, I might. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

What's under the tile

Saturday Sounds - Philip Glass - Violin Concerto No. 2

For this week's musical treat, I'm going back to some classical music with Philip Glass's Violin Concerto No. 2 "The American Four Seasons". Title aside, there isn't much of a similarity with this and Vivaldi's well-known work. In any case, it's a lovely piece of music and I hope it gets performed locally again.  (It had it's world premiere in Toronto in 2009; I don't know how I missed hearing about that, and I absolutely would have gone had I known about it). As you might guess, I like it quite a bit more than the reviewer quoted in the Wikipedia article linked above.

This performance is by the Delirium Musicum under the baton of Étienne Gara from a 2024 recording. 

Movie and TV Reviews - August 2025

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

Movies

• Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Somewhere in this bloated hulk of a movie, there's a really good 45-minute-long episode of the original TV show screaming to get out. (Paramount+)
• Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. Again, an almost 3-hour-long movie that could have, and should have, been no more than 90 minutes. Even then, it would have been a total waste of time. 
• Jurassic World: Rebirth. The parts with big dinosaurs doing nasty things were good,. The rest of it was pretty meh. Out of the four movies we watched this month, this was the best, which is also a comment on the sad state of big Hollywood blockbusters these days. 
• Superman: Another wasted 2 hours. There was nothing in this movie that was better than the Christopher Reeve Superman. 

TV Shows

• Antiques Road Trip (season 10): Our journey though the gewgaw cluttered antique shops of Great Britain continues.
• Ridley (season 1): A police procedural set in the gloomy lake district in England. I found it rather slow. Main reason for watching is that it stars Adrian Dunbar (Line of Duty). (PBS)
• The Good Ship Murder (seaons 1-2): A murder mystery about a lounge singer on a cruise ship who doubles as a private detective. Light entertainment set in various ports around the Mediterranean. (BritBox)
• Ludwig; A puzzle creator becomes a detective by impersonating his missing twin brother. It's an implausible idea, as all such impersonation plots are, but we enjoyed it. Funny and more than a little twisted. (BritBox)
• The Liverpool Murders: Ashleigh and Olivia. A documentary-style show about two murders in Liverpool. Not the best example of this type of show. (Amazon Prime)

Featured Links - September 2, 2025

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

Swans on the bay

• AI is unmasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it?  "A new twist in the debate over surveillance tech raises tough questions for policymakers." As William Gibson said: "The street finds its own uses for things." 
• Reflections on Katrina: 20 Years Later. "People often ask me: What’s the worst hurricane you’ve ever personally seen? With over two decades in the hurricane and disaster space that’s taken me to the ground (or in the air) for nearly every major U.S. hurricane in that span, including Katrina, the answer to that question shouldn’t come so quickly. But it does."
• Alberta Separatists Say Trump Regime Offered Them $500,000,000 “Loan” To Break Up Canada. "Alberta’s separatist circuit is bragging about a half-billion-dollar “transition loan” they say was discussed with Trumpworld in Washington. Seditious if true..." Even if money has not been offered, there is no doubt that the MAGA movement is coordinating with Alberta separatists. 
• Decline and Fall of the American Empire. "Alliances were what made us great." And Trump has shat on almost all of them.
• Our Preoccupation With Protein Intake. "The data on high protein diets, bars, supplements, and powders will surprise you." Some reliable information on protein intake. 
• What happens to New Orleans’ levees when a Category 4 hurricane hits? "The city’s $23 billion levee system is only rated to withstand a Cat 3." The city is still at risk. 
• How to rescue yourself from choking when you're all alone (video). This technique save your life.
• No, the White House Is Not Getting a 90,000-Foot Extension. "But Trump’s doomed proposal does give us a revealing glimpse into his state of mind."
• Earth's Seasons Are Out of Sync, Scientists Discover From Space. "We present an unprecedented and intimate portrait of the seasonal cycles of Earth's land-based ecosystems. This reveals "hotspots" of seasonal asynchrony around the world – regions where the timing of seasonal cycles can be out of sync between nearby locations." 
• Heat events and domestic violence linked, a new study out of New Orleans finds. This does not surprise me but it's good to have the data to back up the hypothesis.
• Harassment at Antarctic research bases could spell problems for moon, Mars outposts. "Antarctica is an isolated, confined environment similar to those that might be on future moon or Mars bases."