The Future File 3 - Will Putin's Russia Collapse?

Here's another predictive post from Dean Blundell, who does like predictions. This is from Russia Is Out Of Gas. Literally. And Trump Just Switched Teams Mid-Russian Collapse As Ukraine Overwhelms Russia EVERYWHERE posted on July 24. 

Why This Might Actually Be The Beginning Of The End In Moscow

Here’s the historical part, and I want to be careful: nobody can predict the end of a regime, and Putin has survived plenty. But Russian regimes don’t fall to elections. They fall to lost wars. The Russo-Japanese War gave you the 1905 revolution. World War I ended the Romanovs. Afghanistan helped bury the Soviet Union. The pattern is losing a war while the economy collapses and the elites lose faith — and check the scoreboard: growth stagnant at 1 percent, the deficit doubled, Putin reportedly passing the hat to oligarchs for “donations,” fuel rationing for 50 million people, an army losing more men than it can recruit, and Sberbank’s own CEO, German Gref, telling shareholders in June that nobody in Russia cares about anything except ending the war as fast as possible.

That’s the head of Russia’s biggest bank saying the quiet part into a microphone. When the money men start talking like that in public, it’s because they’ve already said worse in private.

It's a bit loose as a prediction, but I think the intent is clear. Let's check on this one on October 31. 

 

We're Toast 66

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. 

Springtime in Paris after the AMOC collapses

• A catastrophic climate event is upon us. Here is why you’ve heard so little about it. "This system – known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) – delivers heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. Recent research suggests that if it shuts down, it could cause both a massive drop in average winter temperatures in northern Europe and drastic changes in the Amazon’s water cycles. This could help tip the rainforest into cascading collapse and trigger further disaster."
• Key Atlantic Current System Collapse Could Trigger Huge Carbon Dioxide Release, Increasing Global Warming By 0.2 °C. "he Atlantic Ocean has a complex system of currents and eddies known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and includes the famous Gulf Stream, which helps with milder temperatures in Northern Europe. Over the last century, however, the AMOC has been slowing down, and new research highlights just how bad things might get for the planet’s climate if it collapses completely."
• Climate change is supercharging hurricane rainfall, contributing to deadly floods. "Freshwater flooding has caused over half of all direct hurricane deaths since 2013. The threat will increase as climate change makes hurricanes wetter and potentially slower-moving."
  
• The Clock Is Ticking on a Global Tragedy. "It’s not just oil that travels through the Gulf; the region is home to a massive industry that produces the agricultural fertilizer required to keep food production going. The ongoing disruption of this trade has raised the spectre of global famine."
  
• SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites. "Here's how that could impact the atmosphere and the night sky. 'These launches affect everyone,' says one astronomer."
• Palantir Meets the Anti-Christ. "More and more, the Silicon Valley tech bros are revealing themselves as very dark figures indeed. Gone are cookies and surfing, now they are peddling “AI Kill Chains” for tracking and targeting state enemies. Those being tracked don’t have to have guns. They can be troublesome journalists or civilians hiding from mass deportation."
• Satellites Could Start Smashing into Each Other in Less Than Three Days, Study Finds. "But new research led by Sarah Thiele at Princeton University has found that one of the biggest threats is a solar storm that could cause a cut in communications between satellites and their operators. If the resulting geomagnetic storm did cut comms, the research shows that it could take just 2.8 days before a collision."
• How climate change threatens the economic backbone of the Pacific. "Warming water temperatures caused by climate change pose a substantial risk to local tuna populations, threatening Kiribati's economic backbone."
• The Man Who Made America Safer for Measles. "A brief history of how crackpot ego became public-health policy."
• Major hurricanes in the Northeast are rare. Could climate change make them common? "A Category 4 hurricane making direct landfall on New York City could cause as much as $500 billion in insured damage."
• How strong can a hurricane get in a warming world? "In the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean, hurricanes with 224 mph (100 m/s) winds are possible. Warming the oceans will increase this maximum potential intensity, with potentially devastating effects."
• Panama’s ocean lifeline vanishes for the first time in 40 years. "For decades, the Gulf of Panama has relied on strong seasonal winds to trigger upwelling, bringing cool, nutrient-packed water to the surface. But in 2025, this dependable event didn’t happen. Researchers point to unusually weak winds as the likely culprit, reducing ocean productivity and warming coastal waters. The surprise disruption highlights how vulnerable these critical systems may be to climate change."

Featured Links - May 6, 2026

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

Springtime swans

• Rip.so, the graveyard of dead internet things. 'rip.so is a "graveyard of dead internet things," with a handsome old-web aesthetic (there's even a <marquee>!) with which to enjoy the sites that time forgot.'
• Russia cloaks launch schedule after spaceport falls in Ukraine’s sights. "We had serious inbound attempts to the cosmodrome that day.”
• Utah first state to hold websites liable for users who mask their location with VPNs — law goes into effect, designed to prevent bypassing age checks. "Senate Bill 73 holds websites liable for users who mask their location." Yet another ridiculous law trying to regulate the internet. 
• Rush Lost Its Beloved Drummer. The Band Is Ready to Get Back on the Road (gift link). "After losing Neil Peart to cancer six years ago, the trio is returning to touring with Anika Nilles, a powerhouse drummer who’s forged her own relationship with the group."
• What if Dark Matter Doesn’t Actually Exist? "Modern cosmology assumes dark matter exists. But what makes us so certain that dark matter is the answer—and what if we're wrong?"
• The Paradox of Medical AI Implementation. "From Missed Opportunities to Missing Evidence."
• Where Have All the Book Reviews Gone? (gift link) "What the rise of A.I. and the gutting of books coverage across U.S. media will mean for literature."
• Windows has a tool that shows every app that touched a file on your PC. "Microsoft's Process Monitor was the tool that surfaced all these activities that I never knew existed. Unlike the Task Manager, which shows resource usage percentages, it reveals the exact files my apps are touching in real time. Seeing the volume of activity gives me a deeper understanding of my computer."
• New Lithium-Plasma Engine Passes Key Mars Propulsion Test. "NASA engineers recently tested a next generation electric propulsion system that achieved new records while requiring lithium metal vapor for fuel and holds the potential to be a gamechanger in propulsion systems for the future of space exploration."
• Amazon stuck with months of repairs after drone strikes on data centers. "AWS stops billing Middle East cloud customers as repairs to war damage drag on."
  
• Break free from the fossil-fuel trap. "We're going to pay an extra +$500 billion for oil and gas this year."
• Don't Save This World. Design the Next One by science fiction author and futurist Karl Schoeder. "In this article I’ll lay it out one of the inventive processes I use. This is an approach common to many of my posts. I’ll present it in four easy stages that you can learn to follow yourself. Then, I’ll give you a couple of fun examples of how I’ve used it." 

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Featured Links - April 22, 2026

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

Boats at the marina waiting for summer

• Game of drones. "As the federal government spends billions on military modernization, Canadian drone innovators are vying to meet the moment in the sky, on land and in the water." Good coverage of a new industry with lots of photos. 
• Power imbalance. "James S.A. Corey on The Captives War, The Book of Daniel, and how the only way to survive an alien invasion might be appeasement." A fascinating interview with the authors of the wonderfu Expanse series. 
• What Discoveries Might Be Hiding in the Artemis 2 Images and Data? "NASA’s Artemis 2 mission produced a wealth of data that experts will be analyzing for years to come."
• They Are Killing Our People. "This past week, the Mikisew Cree First Nation of Alberta released a report on the massive cancer rates in their community. The Alberta government withheld key medical statistics, and the federal government dragged their feet. The Feds promised to fund a study that would take 10 years to complete. And so, the community paid for their own research." This is what happens when you live downstream from the biggest polluter in Canada. 
• 'For All Mankind' alternative timeline vs reality: How Apple TV's sci-fi show diverges from history.. "How do "For All Mankind"'s six decades of space exploration "history" compare with the real thing?" Spoiler warning for those who haven't watched the show,
• Why Medieval Bread Was A Superfood While Your Modern Bread Makes You Sick (YouTube). "There's a significant issue with the bread we consume today. While bread was once a fundamental part of civilizations, sustaining families and armies, modern bread often causes gut issues, blood sugar spikes, and leaves us feeling unsatisfied. This food history explores how the bread industry has changed, contrasting today's offerings with the traditional bread that nourished our ancestors. We conduct a food industry case study, examining how the history of bread, including ancient grains and sourdough, shows a stark difference from what we find on shelves now."
• The Making of Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool".  A long essay on one of the true classics of 20th century music. 
• Facebook and Instagram Tighten Censorship Rules for Saying “Antifa”. 'Meta’s new rules let it ban users or suppress comments that include the word “antifa” alongside “content-level threat signals.”'
• How two mathematicians created an equation that quietly runs the planet. "The Diffie-Hellman key exchange secures everything from your text messages to government secrets." This article has the best explanation I've seen ofhow public key cryptography works. 
• Winner of top Sony World Photography Awards $25,000 prize revealed. "With nearly half a million entries, the judges must have had a tough job choosing the winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards. The competition is now in its 19th edition, and the overall Photographer of the Year 2026 title has been named as Citlali Fabián with the series ‘Bilha, Stories of My Sisters’."
• Inside the stunning fall of the Maple Leafs: Chaos, dysfunction and AI. For the (probably few) hockey fans reading this blog, a deep dive into the latest pathetic season of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I was in high school the last time this team won the Stanley Cup. The way they are playing, I may not live long enough to see them win one.
• How Ukraine became a drone factory and invented the future of war. "Ukraine has responded to a war it didn’t start by creating an industry it doesn’t want, but could the nation's drone expertise help it rebuild? To learn more, New Scientist gained exclusive access to the research labs, factories and military training schools behind Ukraine’s drones."

Featured Links - April 15, 2026

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

Docks waiting for summer

• The Cascadia Subduction zone isn’t shutting down – but it’s more complicated than we thought. "But while the discovery is real, the interpretation that the subduction zone is winding down gets ahead of the science. What the new research actually shows is far more complex — and more interesting. But before we can understand what this tear means, we need to go back to plate tectonic theory."
• Helium Is Hard to Replace. "One such supply chain that’s suddenly getting a lot of attention is helium. Helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas extraction: it collects in the same underground pockets that natural gas collects in. Qatar is responsible for roughly 1/3rd of the world’s supply of helium, which was formerly transported through the Strait of Hormuz in specialized containers. Thanks to the closure of the strait, helium prices have spiked, suppliers are declaring force majeure, and businesses are scrambling to deal with looming shortages."
• 5 takeaways from NASA’s biggest test in decades. While successful, there are a lot of things that will have to be addressed before the next Artemis mission. 
• Bad as Trump Is, What Follows Him May Be Worse. "The fight to define MAGA’s future is turning ugly—and more extreme."
• Trump, Pope Leo and the Lessons of 1933. "There is no way that in this new age of fascist threat, the Church is going to forget the lesson of the Reich Concordat."
  
• Solar panels are creating an unexpected effect by forming rainfall clouds and thriving oases in the middle of the desert. 
• Yellowstone's magma source may be closer than thought, reshaping hazard models. "Now, a research team from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) has developed a comprehensive three-dimensional geodynamic model of western North America that simulates the present-day dynamics of both the lithosphere and the underlying convecting mantle, revealing a mechanism for magma generation beneath supervolcanoes."
• This founder helped build SpaceX’s most powerful rocket engine. Now he’s building a ‘fighter jet for orbit.’ "The company is developing a technology called solar thermal propulsion. Today’s standard satellite engines either burn chemical fuel or convert the sun’s energy to electricity, using that to power efficient but low-powered thrusters. Portal’s engines would instead concentrate the heat of the sun, using that to heat propellant and move the spacecraft along at high speed."
• How AI Is Turbocharging the War in Iran (archive link). "Intelligence, targeting and damage assessments are accelerating thanks to military versions of software now remaking business and daily life."
  
• Chinese Electrotech is the Big Winner in the Iran War. "An energy-hungry world is being pushed away by America and into China’s arms."
• This Experimental Drug Could Be a Game Changer for Pancreatic Cancer. "In a Phase III trial, Revolution Medicines' daraxonrasib almost doubled the survival length of people with advanced pancreatic cancer." 
  
• Members of neo-Nazi ‘active clubs’ join combat events at secretive Virginia compound. 'A network of militant neo-Nazi active clubs from around the US has been participating in riot-style combat events with other white nationalist groups in Virginia as part of what their founder called a “tip-off point for a fascist cultural revolution."
• SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites. Here's how that could impact the atmosphere and the night sky. "'These launches affect everyone,' says one astronomer."

The Pentagon Is Going After the Catholic Church

Back in January, the Pentagon had a meeting with a US cardinal in which they basically threatened the Catholic Church and mentioned the Avignon Papacy. That was a period in the 14th century in which the French kidnapped the pope, keeping the papacy in France for 70 years. 

I hadn't heard about this until seeing a post today from Dean Blundell. I did check and there are multiple news sites also reporting about the meeting (here and here, for example).

Pope Leo will not be visiting the US for the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of 1776.  Instead, he'll be visiting the island of Lampedusa, off the coast of Sicily, where many African migrants arrive.  

I very much doubt that Pope Leo will visit the US as long as the Trump administration remains in power. And I do not doubt that the Catholic Church and the papacy will be around long after the Trump administration fades into unhappy memory. 

Featured Links - April 8, 2026

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

A choppy bay

• The Next Coup Attempt. "And How to Stop It." An unsettling post from historian Timothy Snyder. 
• The Artemis Earth photo is incredible – but the one thing that nobody is telling you about it will blow your mind. 'The famous "Hello, World" photo by astronaut Reid Wiseman isn’t quite what you think.' I didn't figure it out until I read the article.
• How to Find Thunderbird Profile Location in Windows 11, 10, 8, 8.1, 7. I needed to figure this out because Thunderbird moved the profile folder on my wife's laptop and my backup program couldn't find it. This is a useful article for anyone using Thunderbird on Windows.
• The Lancet: Long COVID and Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease. "A recent study (see PLoS Med.: Association Between COVID-19 Vaccination and Sudden Death in Apparently Healthy Younger Individuals) found no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in young healthy adults, but they did find a strong link between recent COVID infection and an increased risk of sudden cardiac death." 
• Data Centres Are on Track to Wreck the Planet. Can We Stop Them? "They will guzzle more water and power than the world can afford—for an AI video of your cat as an astronaut."
• Any USB drive or cable you plug in might be a silent killer. "As if we didn’t already have enough malware to worry about, malicious hackers and state-sponsored cybercrime teams are turning ordinary-looking USB drives and cables into weapons that can infect or fry — within a single second — any computer or electronic component you plug them into."
• Experiments refute dark matter claim. "The results of her analysis, which have excluded the dark matter explanation with greater confidence, were published in Physics Review Letters ...". 
• Canadian couple shows how a $40 weekly food budget is possible. "Michelle Nijdam, 31, has been gaining a following online after she started sharing how she sticks to a strict $160 monthly budget (or $40 weekly budget) while living in Vancouver — one of the most expensive cities in Canada. On her YouTube channel, @MichellesHomemaking, she talks about the ups and downs of having a tight budget while sharing some handy tips."
• Gambling on War and Death. "Polymarket allows anonymous accounts to bet on everything — but with increasing attention to war. Will a tanker be seized? When will the next drone strike occur? Gamblers can even look at maps of Ukrainian villages and play the odds on which neighbourhood of innocent civilians will be hit. It is literally about making a killing on killing. And it is also about manipulating the market in frightening ways."
• The 51st State Fantasy Is Over: How King Charles and Mark Carney Put An End To Trump's Desire To Invade Canada. "How Trump’s annexation campaign collapsed against 200 years of history, one king, and a prime minister who played the long game."
• Art UK. "Connecting you to art. Art UK is a unique digital experience that connects everyone with the UK's public art collections. We digitally unite one million artworks from 3,500 institutions – museums, libraries, town halls, hospitals – as well as public art in our streets such as sculptures and murals."
• Why U.S. Gatling Guns Are Not Stopping Iran’s Shahed Drones. "In any discussion of drone defense, Gatling-type guns are often presented as a trump card. These rapid-fire weapons, originally developed to defend U.S. warships against sea-skimming missiles, can easily down bigger and faster threats than a 120 mph Shahed drone. On paper they look devastatingly effective, and news reports speak enthusiastically of their “shredding Iranian drones.” But they are not a magic wand to make all drones disappear, and some Shaheds are getting through."
• America forgot how to make a classified nuclear warhead ingredient. "The U.S. government forgot how to make a classified component of its own nuclear warheads, then spent $92 million figuring it out again. The material is called Fogbank, and almost everything about it is classified — its composition, its purpose, and how it's manufactured." Just think of all the money they could have saved if they'd had a documentation library,

The US versus Canada 13

It's time for amother article abut the ongoing cultural and economic conflct between Canada and the United States. 

• Doug Ford takes anti-tariff message to Texas as opposition cries foul (gift link). "Ontario Premier Doug Ford is in Texas this week, meeting with businesses and American lawmakers to shore up support for local industries and advocate against U.S. tariffs, ahead of crucial trade talks between Canada and the U.S."
• Pete Hegseth Is Waging a Holy War to Take Over Canada/Greenland To Build Greater North America "in Jesus’ Name”. "The Secretary of War just merged the Crusades with colonial conquest and called it God’s plan. Canada is on the map."
  
• American booze bans, 'Buy Canadian' policy flagged by U.S. as trade irritants: report. "U.S. wants its alcohol returned to all markets after being pulled from shelves in several provinces." Even if it got back on our shelves, that doesn't mean that Canadians will buy it. 
• A Mother, a Child and Niemöller’s Warning. "News reports tell us of Canadian Tania Warner, age 47, being held in a Texas ICE detention centre with her seven-year-old autistic daughter. She was stopped in an arbitrary traffic search while returning from a baby shower. Tania is married to an American and believed her papers were in order. It didn’t matter. They took her away."
• Two Ops, One Playbook: How MAGA (and Maple MAGA) Turn MAID and “Anti‑Christian Bias” into a Psy‑op For a "Crusade" Against Canadians. "CANADA said "NO" to importing MAGA when we elected Mark Carney. So the Trump Regime (and MAPLE MAGA) is supporting TWO "Psy-Ops" across Canada to justify a "Crusade" north of the border."
• The MAGA Plot to Take Down Canada. "A growing movement of MAGA-pilled Albertan separatists would happily break up the country to be closer to Trump."
• On Behalf of Canada, Tucker Carlson Can Go F*** Himself. "Let's break down Tucker's latest "Let's take over Canada" campaign, sponsored by Russian State Media." Carlson is vile and the thought of him even running for the US presidency in 2028 makes me cringe. 
• How Alberta’s Separatist Movement Could Shake North America. "The resentments, politics, and risks behind their push to leave Canada."

Featured Links - March 25, 2026

Things I was interested in but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Bluffer's Park on a cloudy day

• Inside the fiery, deadly crashes involving the Tesla Cybertruck. "Cybertrucks have locked passengers inside and burned so hot they’ve disintegrated drivers’ bones. Victims’ families blame what they say is the faulty design of a truck Elon Musk calls ‘apocalypse-proof’" Just in case you need another reason to not buy a Cybertruck. 
• No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing (gift link). "Lab-made drugs soaked into the pages of letters, books and even legal documents are being smuggled behind bars, killing inmates and frustrating investigators."
• Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers (archive link). "The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world."
  
• Resisting the superbugs (archive link). "Canadian researcher Gerry Wright is searching for the next generation of life-saving antibiotics." Unfortunately, discovering a new antibiotic is easier than getting it to market. 
  
• Record-torching March heat ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change. "Friday’s spring equinox may seem like a quaint notion to those already enduring furnace-like 90-110°F summer heat." In this part of the country, we've had a cold winter with more snow than usual in recent years.
• The Trap Always Closes. "Donald Trump, Lyndon Johnson, and wars we can’t win." History shows that Trump can't win this war. His only way out is to stop, and he won't.
• Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks, bolstering origin-of-life theories. "We are stardust, we are golden ...".
• The World Factbook. "The community-maintained successor to the CIA World Factbook. Comprehensive data on 254 countries and territories." The CIA killed the CIA World Factbook in February and that this site is maintaining the information. 
• Canada wants to build up its long-neglected Arctic. The hard question is how. "Ottawa wants to modernize a region in the north that’s about six times the size of Texas, ‘just like in the 1800s’"
• As SpaceX Launches its 10,000th Satellite, A Photographer Captures the Impact on the Night Sky, "This week SpaceX passed an eye-watering milestone: it launched its 10,000th satellite into low-Earth orbit. The sheer scale of the devices whizzing around above humanity is unimaginable, but photographer Joshua Rozells is helping people see. Rozells’ image, Swamped Skies, is a composite of 343 photos that all contain at least one satellite streak. The Australian photographer didn’t set out to make the image; he originally wanted to capture star trails."
• Project Hail Mary is packed with hard science. An astrophysicist breaks it down. '"Project Hail Mary" is more than just an epic adventure film with beautiful visuals. It's a story that reminds us how important our world is—and how vital science is to our continued existence on it.'
• When Hyperglobalization Meets Chaos. "Choke points are everywhere you look." The crisis over the strait of Hormuz is only the beginning. 
• Historians Say They’ve Discovered a Long-Lost Page From the Archimedes Palimpsest, a Treasure Trove of Rare Ancient Mathematical Treatises. "Three leaves had been missing for more than a century. Researchers found one of them when they decided on a whim to check the archives of a French museum."

Featured Links - November 25, 2025

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

Lifeguard station at Scarborough Bluffs

Reinventing the Subsistence Economy. "How Energy and Food Decoupling Rewrite the Map of Post-Growth Futures." An optimistic look at a possible future from Karl Schroeder.

The Terminator Future Has Arrived. "Gaza represents a future of warfare that will be repeated elsewhere as the algorithms are proving efficient, merciless and remorseless."

The Worst Part About Publishing a Book in 2025 Is The New Kind of Spam. Authors are getting buried in targetted AI-authored spam. 

Google’s New Gmail Upgrades—Why You Must Choose Carefully. Unless you live in the EU, Google may be opting you in to giving them access to your private data.

Russian Unreality and American Weakness. "Notes from a bizarre moment of diplomatic history." An absolutely devastating take down of the proposed "peace plan" to end the Ukranian war from historian Timothy Synder. 

Open the pod bay doors, HAL (Arguing with A.I.). A detailed post showing how AI can provide misleading results, with examples.

Bitcoin isn't anonymous — investigators can trace every transaction on the blockchain. Just in case you thought all those drug buys were safe. 

Featured Links - October 14, 2025

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

A grey Lake Ontario

• Toronto vs Chicago: Transit Moving Masses Through The Metropolises. On the map, it looks like Chicago has a more extensive transit network than Toronto, but the reality on the street is very different. 
• A digital dark age? The people rescuing forgotten knowledge trapped on old floppy disks. "From lectures by Stephen Hawking to the letters of British politician Neil Kinnock – it's a race against time to save the historical treasures locked away on old floppy disks." This was a real eye-opener and really interesting. 
• How can a blind photographer take such great photos? Find out here. As a photographer and a person with low vision, I found this both interesting and  inspiring.  
• The Village and the Stars. "Science Fiction, Greenwich Village, and the American Counterculture." An article by Robert Charles Wilson. 
• Regular Expressions, and AI. Using ChatGPT to help construct useful regex expressions is something that would have been a great timesaver in my last job. 
• Engineers create first artificial neurons that could directly communicate with living cells. "A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced the creation of an artificial neuron with electrical functions that closely mirror those of biological ones."
• The Destruction in Gaza Is What the Future of AI Warfare Looks Like. "American tech companies have given highly consequential support to Israel's campaign."
• Another mid-M7 earthquake in the Drake Passage. "The third large earthquake to strike between South America and Antarctica this year." 
• Have We Reached a Space-Junk Tipping Point? "In some orbits, the Kessler syndrome is already underway." This is rather disquieting. 

Featured Links - October 6, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. I didn't post last week, so here's a baker's dozen for you. 

GO Train tracks out of Pickering

• Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche. "The Trump regime believes it has all the justification it needs to violate our laws and the Constitution. It is mistaken." I am boggled that this is not front-page news and appalled at the silence of the mainstream media. 
• How China is Powering a Clean Energy Revolution. "And bringing cheap electricity and energy security to poor countries."
  
• When Did the New Global War Begin? "So maybe now I can finally pose the question that has been keeping me up at night: At what point will it become evident that we have entered a global conflict? A third world war?"
• CHORD will be a huge leap forward for Canadian radio astronomy. "The next-generation radio telescope will leverage Canadian astronomical leadership to unveil the mysteries of the cosmos."
• Canada Tables A Bill That Can Net You Life In Prison For Hate Propaganda/Hate Speech. IRL And Online. LFG. "You Might Want To Start Scrubbing Your MAGA Timelines..."
• ALS Breakthrough Shows Fatal Disease Is Driven by Immune Attack. "Researchers have uncovered how the body’s own immune system may be driving the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS — a breakthrough that could reshape treatment of the fatal disease."
• Why a massive Russian plane was moved at Toronto Pearson Airport. The AN-124 has been there since the start of the Ukraine war. 
• Anya Pogharian, Montreal teen inventor, takes portable dialysis machine to the world. "18-year-old tests her invention on real blood during internship at Héma-Québec." I hoipe this works and can be put into wide production. It will change peple's lives.
• Declining American Democracy: Trump is a Symptom, Not the Cause. "The modern GOP is inherently authoritarian." This is one of the more insightful essays I've read recently.
• Rise of the Middle Powers. "Who are the adults in the room, in modern politics? And what if those adults want neither a return to American hegemony, nor a multipolar world order?"
• Scientists uncover how to block pain without side effects. "Current painkillers like ibuprofen and aspirin often come with harmful side effects because they shut down both pain and inflammation. But this new research identified a single “pain switch” receptor that can be turned off without interfering with inflammation, which actually helps the body recover."
• Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? "Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and what we can do about it."
• He Created a Spiritual Jazz Masterpiece. He’s Still a Mystery. "Shamek Farrah’s 1974 debut is a highly sought-after rarity, but even his most ardent admirers know little about him. In a rare interview, he tells his story."

We're Toast 62

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. 

Golfing while the world burns

Note: I created the image above Microsoft's Copilot AI tool. I wanted an image of Trump golfing on the White House lawn while Washington burned. It refused to do that but offered sevral alternative suggestions of which this was one. 

He Asked a Chatbot How to Start a Pandemic. It Answered. "A former UN weapons inspector brought the results to the White House. The message: anyone can do this now."

Phoenix Is Facing A Heat Crisis. Here's A Glimpse of Our Climate Future. "Phoenix is experiencing record-breaking, prolonged extreme heat driven by climate change, pushing the city into uncharted territory with growing risks to health, infrastructure, and daily life."

Trump Administration Moves to Destroy Satellite That Monitors Greenhouse Gases. "The Orbiting Carbon Observatories have been a game-changer for agriculture and climate science. Now, NASA is under pressure to terminate them." Farmers use the information from these satellites to check on how well their crops are going. 

The Republican campaign to stop the U.S. EPA from protecting the climate. "An audacious effort to destroy climate regulations is likely headed for a showdown at the Supreme Court."

The Drying Planet. 'Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying.'

Scientists raise red flags after observing concerning new whale behavior: 'We're seeing conditions that suggest a continuation'. "So far this year, 47 gray whales have been stranded across California, Washington, and Oregon — already well above last year's total of 31, with peak migration not expected until the end of June. Cascadia Research reports that most of the stranded whales showed signs of malnutrition, including depleted blubber oil, missing fat reserves, and empty digestive tracts."

Rising Seas Could Displace Millions, Triggering Global Migration Crisis, Study Warns. "Scientists issue a dire warning that even the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target is too high and will have catastrophic consequences for coastal populations."

Nuclear Winter Would Be Even Worse Than We Thought. "The consequences of nuclear catastrophe extend far beyond the initial explosion—it could dismantle global food security for decades to come, a new study suggests."

Featured Links - July 15, 2025

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

Summer daisies

• The Day Grok Tried to Be Human. "xAI’s chatbot spiraled into chaos after trying to sound more human. The fix reveals just how fragile truth-seeking AI really is." Like father, like son.
• Collapse of key Atlantic currents may be held off by newly-discovered back-up system, study finds. "Rising temperatures in the North Atlantic are slowing vital currents, but a new process in the Arctic could save the day, scientists say." Let's hope this is true. 
• Commentary: Cory Doctorow: Rubber-Hose Cryptanalysis. "In a technologically advanced society, where your health, life and livelihood are all dependent on encryption, and encryption is dependent on the rule of law, authoritarianism represents an existential threat. When a border guard, an immigration enforcer, a federal of­ficer, or the cop on the beat can use rubber-hose cryptanalysis to compromise the security of our otherwise impregnable cryptosystems, the entire basis for trusting in the integrity of our computerized world crumbles."
• Ukraine Infantry Adapts to More Menacing Drones. "For an elite unit, rapidly evolving drone warfare makes the “toughest job in the army” both easier and more perilous." Shades of The Terminator.
  
• Algoma Steel announces historic first arc at new electric furnace. "Michael Garcia, Algoma's president, described today's news as a landmark development in the 'largest industrial decarbonization project in Canada'" Good news for the Sault and for meeting Canada's carbon emission goals.
• Canada's second-tallest structure is being demolished in Ontario. "The Superstack — designed to better disperse smelting gas from Vale's Copper Cliff Complex — has stood as the tallest chimney in the Western Hemisphere throughout its existence." I have driven past that stack many times. 
• Work-from-home starting to look more remote as companies get stricter on office time. During my last few years at the TSX, I was able to work from home two or sometimes three days a week and loved it. I was more productive and had more energy because I wasn't commuting 90 mintues each way. 

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, 

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."

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."

Featured Links - May 12, 2025

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

Garlic growing at the Crooked Creek Garden Centre

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

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,"

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."