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."  

Taking the Weekend Off

We're coming up to another long weekend here in the Great White North. Our heatwave has disappeared to be replaced by autumn-like temperatures, though given the overall climate, I'm sure more warm weather is on the way. I'm taking the weekend off from blogging and will be back here on Tuesday. 

In the meantime, here's a picture of two of Toronto's best known landmarks, the Rogers Centre (which will always be the Skydome to me) and the CN Tower. I took this with my Pixel 8 Pro from our seats at Wednesday night's Blue Jays game. 

The Rogers Centre and CN Tower in Toronto

Why Are the Markets So Complacent?

I have been expecting a major market correction, and possibly even a crash, for some time now; that is, ever since November 5th, 2024. It should be blindingly obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain that Trump and his MAGA cronies are going to steer the US into a major crisis or be faced with a polycrisis that overwhelms the US capability to respond, and the markets are finally going to notice. 

I'm not the only one who thinks this. See, for example, Paul Krugman's newsletter today, titled Why Aren't the Markets Freaking Out? Here are a couple of relevant quotes. 

My read of economic and financial history is that market pricing almost never takes into account the possibility of huge, disruptive events, even when the strong possibility of such events should be obvious. The usual pattern, instead, is one of market complacency until the last possible moment. That is, markets act as if everything is normal until it’s blindingly obvious that it isn’t.

Later: 

So if the conventional wisdom is that economic conditions will remain more or less normal despite highly abnormal policy, markets will remain calm until the illusion of normality becomes unsustainable. At that point market prices may “change violently.” The current technical term for this phenomenon is a “Wile E. Coyote moment” — the moment when the cartoon character, having run several steps off the edge of a cliff, looks down and realizes that there’s nothing supporting him. Only then, according to the laws of cartoon physics, does he fall.

You might ask why smart investors with long time horizons don’t foresee Wile E. Coyote moments and get very rich in the process. Some do. But for reasons that would take another long post to explain — maybe a primer one of these days — there never seem to be enough such investors to shake market complacency, no matter how unwarranted. It’s one thing to short a stock, but to short the entire market is a completely different beast.

And yes, he does provide receipts to back up his assertions. 

I think I will forward this column to my financial advisor.  

 

Word Docs Now Saved to the Cloud by Defau;lt

If you use Microsoft Word as part of Microsoft 365, you need to look at this article from Office Watch. Microsoft has changed the default save location for Word docs to the cloud, either OneDrive or SharePoint. You can change it to a local directory on your computer, but it takes a bit of effort. 

This is an arrogant but inevitable step by Microsoft to ram OneDrive down the throats of their paying customers. A change made to benefit the company with little consideration of the customers’ legitimate needs.

Here’s what we know about this change (announced today) based on Microsoft’s carefully crafted description. Office Watch will report more once we can test the new Word build ourselves to see how it really works.

I'm not impressed. I don't use OneDrive any more than absolutely necessary. Windows wants to use it for screen shots, for example. I can live with that, but I want files I create in a specific location for which I have backup routines in place. 

Featured Links - August 26, 2025

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

Front yard hyacinths. 

The Super-Weird Origins of the Right’s Hatred of the Smithsonian. "The Trump administration has stepped up its antagonism of America’s treasured museums. But conservative antipathy toward the institution began long ago—with the bones of Bible giants."

Scientists Propose a Smarter Way to Hunt for Alien Radio Signals. "We might find intelligent aliens by looking for them the same way they’d find us."

Covid and Our Arteries. "A new study on acceleration of vascular aging adds to the body of evidence." Yet more reasons to do whatever you can to avoid catching COVID.

4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC. "A lawyer representing the online message board 4chan says it won't pay a proposed fine by the UK's media regulator as it enforces the Online Safety Act."

The 9 Worst RFK Jr. Decisions to Date. "By every measure, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been — and continues to be — a disaster. His actions undermine scientific progress, public trust, and the health of millions. In a mere matter of months, his agenda has left lasting scars on America’s public health infrastructure, while reverberating globally by undoing decades of progress in vaccination and disease prevention."

Sadopopulism and the Fascist MAGA Ethos. "Trump’s policy is to inflict pain, even upon his own voters. But why does this work, and what will stop it?"

Five Ways to Fight Trump's Fascism. "People are constantly asking me — what can I do? Between now and the 2026 midterm elections, here are five practical steps you can take to make a difference." YouTube video from Robert Reich. 

We Are All Lisa Cook. "Nobody is safe from weaponized government."

The “Peace in Our Time” Moment. "Why Trump’s Deal With Putin Echos Munich 1938." The similarities between now and 1938 are clear. 

Dude, you broke the Future! A talk by SF author, Charlie Stross, from the 34C3 conference in 2017. It's eight years old now and still relevant. (YouTube video)

Photo of the Week - August 24, 2025

This week's photo is of construction for the new Ontario Line, a major subway project in Toronto. Construction is well underway, and if I'm lucky and Metrolinx doesn't screw up the way they did with the Eglinton Crosstown line (which is still not open after more than a decade), I may live long enough to ride on it around 2030. I believe this is the site of the East Harbour station on the east side of the Don river. 

I took this with my Pixel 8 Pro on the way downtown, shooting through the Go Train window, so it's not the greatest quality, but it is an interesting scene. The scale of construction on the way into Union Station is very impressive. 

Ontario Line construction in Toronto

Saturday Sounds - Tedeschi Trucks Band - August 12, 2025

This week's musical treat is a video of the Tedeschi Trucks Band at the fabled Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA on August 12, 2025. They're one of the best bands touring right now and this video catches them on a good night. There are many highlights but I'll note just one: the encore of Angel from Montgomery > Sugaree. 

This is a pro-shot video, probably from a webcast, and the sound and video are first rate. Enjoy.

SETLIST

The Letter

Laugh About It

I Am the Moon

Little by Little

Do I Look Worried

1999

I Want More

Come and Go Blues

Future Soul

Keep On Growing

Devil Be Gone

Midnight in Harlem

The Sky Is Crying

Made Up Mind

Encore:

Angel From Montgomery / Sugaree

Let's Go Get Stoned

List of AI Writing Tells

The internet is becoming polluted with slop, content that's been produced by AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini. The problem with that kind of junk content more than just slpppy writing; large language models can and often do hallucinate, inventing facts that seem plausible but have no basis in reality. 

This is a real problem for Wikipedia, whose purpose is to provide accurate information. To combat this, Wikipedia has created a list of AI tells, things that will help its editors spot content that's been produced by AI and hence requires closer scrutiny. 

This is a list of writing and formatting conventions typical of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, with real examples taken from Wikipedia articles and drafts. Its purpose is to act as a field guide in helping detect undisclosed AI-generated content. Note that not all text featuring the following indicators is AI-generated; large language models (LLMs), which power AI-chatbots, have been trained on human writing, and some people may share a similar writing style.

The listed observations are empirical statements, not normative statements (except notes on how strong an indicator something should be taken to be). The latter are contained in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Any normative content about what kind of formatting or language not to use in articles is not topical here; it might belong in (and is probably already present in) the Manual of Style.

Here's just one item from the list. 

Rule of three

LLMs overuse the 'rule of three'—"the good, the bad, and the ugly". This can take different forms from "adjective, adjective, adjective" to "short phrase, short phrase, and short phrase".

Whilst the 'rule of three', when used sparingly, is considered good writing, LLMs seem to rely heavily on it so the superficial explanations appear more comprehensive. Furthermore, this rule is generally suited to creative or argumentative writing, not purely informational texts.

Examples

The Amaze Conference brings together global SEO professionals, marketing experts, and growth hackers to discuss the latest trends in digital marketing. The event features keynote sessions, panel discussions, and networking opportunities.

When I was working at the TSX, I used Paul Beverley's wonderful FRedit Microsoft Word add-in to scan my documents for words and phrases that I would review and likely change. It could easily be adapted to catch many of the AI signatures (in poker terminology, tells) in a document. Some of Paul's other tools would also be useful in analyzing documents to spot content that has been produced by an LLM. 

What I'd really like is a browser extension that would flag web pages that appeared to be AI-generated. I know there are such tools and may do a bit of digging to find one that would work for me, preferably one that's open source. Suggestions are welcome. 

Featured Links - August 19, 2025

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

Seven swans on the bay

• NordSpace breaks ground on new Atlantic Spaceport in Newfoundland  "Complex just outside of a small fishing town to support Canada’s first commercial space launch later this month."
• Ford’s Plan to Dig a Tunnel under Highway 401 Is Almost Certainly Doomed. "At this point, what do you even say about a guy like Doug Ford? His latest commitment to doubling down on blasting a tunnel under Highway 401, the busiest in North America, ought to disqualify him from the Ontario premiership."
• Supervolcano shows signs of waking up, which is not a good thing, but scientists have a plan. It looks like a massive eruption is unlikely but smaller eruptions are certainly possible. 
• New Brain Interface Interprets Inner Monologues With Startling Accuracy. "Scientists decoded the silent inner thoughts of four people with paralysis, a breakthrough that could transform assistive speech."
• Antarctica’s Ghost Hunters: Inside the World’s Biggest Neutrino Detector. "Physicist Carlos Argüelles-Delgado gives us an introduction to this one-of-a-kind facility, one of the most successful neutrino detectors in the world."
• 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."

2025 Hugo Award Winners

The winners of the 2025 Hugo Awards were announced at the Seattle Worldcon Saturday evening. These are the fiction winners.

• BEST NOVEL: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey, Hodderscape UK)
• BEST NOVELLA: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (Tordotcom)
• BEST NOVELETTE:  “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer (Asimov’s, September/October 2024)
• BEST SHORT STORY:  “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 57) 
• BEST SERIES: Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press)
• BEST GRAPHIC STORY OR COMIC: Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio 

I have not read The Tainted Cup though I suspect Nancy will be interested in it. I am glad to see that Ray Nayler won the Best Novelette award for The Tusks of Extinction, which I have and will be reading soon. I am almost finished his first novel, The Mountain in the Sea, and recommend it unreservedly.

Photo of the Week - August 17, 2025

This week's photo is another one of a farm north of Oshawa. I'm impressed by the industrial scale of some of these operations; something that most people don't associate with farms. I don't know what this complex is; my guess is that it's for processing corn. It was taken from our car with my Pixel 8 Pro, No, I was not driving!

Industrial farming north of Oshawa

Saturday Sounds - Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003 - 2009)

There was a time, about 20 years ago, when I was quite a big fan of Radiohead. Their music isn't what I typically listen to, but something about it clicked. I never did manage to see them live, which is probably just as well given the abysmal acoustics of the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena). 

This week's musical treat is a just-released live album consisting of most of the tracks from Hail to the Thief recorded between 2003 and 2009. It definitely reminds me of why I liked them at the time. You can  read more about it in this article from Rolling Stone. (paywalled but the Reader View extension will show it to you if you are using Chrome). 

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 - August 12. 2025

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

Summer flowers looking a bit wilted

Bullets in the windows. "Until now, it was only a metaphor." This is horrifying and should have had more prominence in the news. 

Scientists reveal Alaska could get up to two minutes’ warning before the next big quake. "A new study suggests Alaska could get 10–120 seconds of warning before major quakes, with more seismic stations adding up to 15 extra seconds. Researchers emphasize challenges like harsh winters, remote sites, and alert transmission delays, but say the benefits could be lifesaving."

The War for the Web Has Begun. "One of the internet's biggest gatekeepers has accused a rising AI star of breaking the web's oldest rules. The explosive feud could change how we all get information online."

 A Valid HTML ZIP Bomb. "Many sites have been affected by the aggressiveness of web crawlers designed to improve LLMs. I’ve been relatively spared, but since the phenomenon started, I've been looking for a solution to implement. Today, I present a zip bomb gzip and brotli that is valid HTML."

2025 Aurora Awards. "The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) today announced the winners of the 2024 Aurora Awards for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror in an online awards ceremony."

Why Are We Funding This? "People often wrongly believe that scientific progress is made by a few “great geniuses” working on a few “big questions,” and that those geniuses have some sense in advance of what the answers are going to be. In reality, knowledge is advanced by many independent teams of people working on chipping away at the boundaries of knowledge a little bit at a time. Sometimes doing so leads to a world-changing discovery. Other times it just tells us one more thing that doesn’t work, a vital step toward eventually learning what does work."

Saturday Sounds - Go Ride the Music - Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service

This week's musical treat is another trip back to the 1970s featuring two of San Francisco's greatest bands: Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. The video was originally broadcast on PBS in December 1970 and features songs from both bands. 

I watched it on a black-and-white TV when I was in university. I tried recording the audio with a mike in front of the TV using a portable reel-to-reel from the student radio station where I was a DJ but unfortunately misthreaded the tape. In any case, I've had an audio bootleg of it for years, but this is the first time I've seen original video. 

There are very few good recordings of the Airplane playing live, even if it was in a recording studio, so this one is special. Quicksilver were past their prime by this time, but still enjoyable. The audio quality is very good but the video could use some upscaling. 

I have a request: If you have some across a recording of the Airplane's performance at the East Towne Theatre in Detroit in November 1969, please let me know where I can find it. 

Featured Links - August 5, 2025

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

A farm north of Oshawa

• The 10 apps I can't live or work without - on Windows, Mac, and mobile. I've been reading Ed Bott's articles and listening to him on podcasts for years. You can trust his research and his opinions. You might also want to read this article he wrote about the comments section for the article. 
• Midcentury Dreams. "Chesley Bonestell and Willy Ley's The Conquest of Space". I remember that book fondly, and the movie that was based on it.
• Flourishing chemosynthetic life at the greatest depths of hadal trenches. Life at 9 km. deep in the ocean. This might bode well for the prospect of life in the outer icy moons of the solar system. 
• A perfect storm (gift link). "As wildfires and storms fuel climate worries, the rise of weather content on social media shows there's a fine line between preparation and obsession."
• I Trusted Gemini With a Web Search and It Sent Me Straight to a Scam. "AI is creeping into more parts of the internet, answering search queries, recommending downloads, and even deciding what emails deserve your attention. But just because it sounds helpful doesn’t mean it always knows what it’s doing."
• Dennis McNally’s Last Great Dream: Memories of Working with the Grateful Dead, Tracking Kerouac and Exploring How Bohemians Became Hippies. I definitely want to read this.
• De-Google Project Update. "I introduced this family project in the spring of 2024. I won’t reproduce those arguments for why we’re working on this, but in the current climate I feel like I hardly need to. Since that post, our aversion to Google dependency has only grown stronger. Progress has been non-zero but not fast."

Off for the Long Weekend

It's another long weekend up here in the Great Green North, this one known as Simcoe Day in Ontario. July was ridiculously hot and humid with episodes of wildfire smoke, so enjoying the outside was difficult. This weekend looks more pleasant so I'm taking the weekend off to enjoy it and give my heat-stressed yard some TLC. I'll be back here on Tuesday.

In the meantime, here's a photo of another farm north of Oshawa baking in the hot July sun. I hope they've gotten enough rain because it's been pretty dry here.

A farm north of Oshawa

Review: The Lion King

Nancy and I went to see The Lion King in Toronto last night at the Princess of Wales Theatre. I am not a big fan of the original cartoon and I haven't seen the live action remake, but the stage musical is wonderful. The story line is standard Disney, warmed over fairy tale, with African elements but the staging and production raises it to another level. It's by far the most complex show I've ever seen staged and it's beautifully done.

Our seats were up in the balcony so it wasn't be best experience for me as far as seeing the details of the costumes and sets, but it was good for appreciating the staging. The actors, the music, and the sound were all first rate and the costuming and puppetry were exceptional.

It's showing until the end of August and tickets are still available. The lady sitting next to us got same day rush seating. I suspect most of the floor seats are taken by now, but the theatre isn't that big and balcony seats are fine.

The Lion King curtain call

Movie and TV Reviews - July 2025

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

• Mickey 17: I had high hopes for this one, having heard the book was good, but about halfway through it pretty much fell apart. (Amazon Prime)
• Heads of State: Quite reminiscent of the "x Has Fallen" series, but even worse. Well made, but dumb, cliché ridden, and jingoistic. (Amazon Prime)

TV Shows

• The Art Detectives: A police procedural about art theft and fraud. Definitely on the lighter side of the genre but enjoyable. (The documentary series, Art Dectives, is etter.) (Acorn TV)
• Severance (season 2): Even more confusing that season 1 but watchable until about halfway through the season. I lost interest by the end. Kudos to the production's team for the quality of the cinematography and Apple TV+ for the streaming quality, which is the best of any of the services we subscribe to. (Apple TV+)
• The Librarians: The Next Chapter. Light fantasy about a library of supernatural objects and the librarians who are tasked with keeping them secure. (Crave) Shot in Belgrade so the settings are interesting. 
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (season 3). It's getting time to retire the franchise, I think. It's gotten too self referential and the stories are getting buried in glitzy effects. (Paramount+)

Featured Links - July 29, 2025

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about. This post is (mostly) politics-free.

A farm north of Oshawa

• I started using NotebookLM with Microsoft Word and I’m not going back. I could have used this in my last job. 
• The Painter of the Right. "Thomas Kinkade’s paintings show conservatives a world they have already won." Unfortunately, the documentary mentioned in the article doesn't appear to be available for streaming. 
• Remembering Descent, the once-popular, fully 3D 6DOF shooter. "Descent is a big part of gaming history, but not many people talk about it." 
• The death of the projection booth. "As movie theatres adapt new technology for screenings, the art of feeding film through a projector is fading to black."
• 12 Fresh Tomato Pasta Recipes We Can’t Stop Making. Our garden looks like it will produce a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, so I'm looking forward to trying some of these recipes.
• I took my e-book library back from Amazon with this self-hosted app. "BookLore turns ebook chaos into a modern, streamlined library you control completely." I might try this. I'm finding the Kindle app on my iPad Mini almost unusable for managing my books because the Collections view won't show a collection's contents in a list format. 
• Social media is dead – here’s what comes next. "A new information ecosystem is on the rise, featuring closer connections, cosy media and worker-owned websites, writes Annalee Newitz."
• Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97. "A mathematician by training, he acquired a devoted following with songs that set sardonic lyrics to music that was often maddeningly cheerful." Noted with sadness. 

Photo of the Week - July 27, 2025

This week's photo is a picture of the interior of the now closed and empty Saks Fifth Avenue OFF FIFTH store at the Shops at Pickering City Centre mall. The store closed earlier this year as part of the collapse of the Hudson's Bay retail empire. I'm surprised the lights were still on but it did make for an interesting composition. This was taken with my Pixel 8 Pro.

Sad Saks

Saturday Sounds - The Strawbs

Today's musical treat was inspired by news of the death of Dave Cousins, a founding member of The Strawbs, a British band who had a couple of hits in the 1970s. Their music had a mix of progressive rock and that I found (and still find) quite appealing. I saw them perform only once, in Hamilton in 1973, where they opened for King Crimson. Their song, "Part of the Union" was a big hit there at the time. They played Hugh's Room in Toronto a few times but I never managed to catch one of those gigs.  

They released many albums over a 50 year span. I'm going to include two of the early ones here: Bursting at the Seams and Hero and Heroine. Enjoy.

The USA versus Canada 9

Just two stories to note this time; both of them important.

First, in Quebec in Canadian waters north of Lake Champlain, a fisherman was abducted by the US Coast Guard. His boat was rammed and he almost drowned before being plucked from the water and being detained for a couple of hours before being released. 

This wasn’t ambiguous. This wasn’t a high-speed chase. This wasn’t a drug cartel sting. This was a 60-year-old Quebecois fishing off a borrowed boat — in Canadian waters, near Venise-en-Québec, 15 kilometres north of the U.S. border.

 It’s unclear if Canadian authorities were notified before or after the incident. It’s also unclear what the Carney government intends to do about the incident — but silence is complicity.

If Trump’s administration is detaining Canadians in Canadian territory, then we have a serious diplomatic emergency — not an “unfortunate misunderstanding.”

This story should be getting more attention than it has been so far. If Mr. Lallemand was anywhere near where he said he was, then the US Coast Guard had no business being there. Our government needs to push back, hard, on this. Is the St. Mary's River now going to become a danger zone for Canadian boaters and fishers? Or Whitefish Bay? 

Second, the boycott of US products by Canadians has finally caught the attention of US media and Trump's MAGA followers. 

It isn’t a negotiating tactic. It wasn't organized, planned or led by anyone. The boycott is the result of an instinctual response from ordinary Canadians across the country to defy the threats and disrespect of Donald Trump.

And Trump can't do anything about it. His understanding of politics is that of a zero-sum game. He not only believes in a world defined by winners and losers but also uses his power to humiliate and degrade those he considers lesser.

From politicians and potential rivals, he demands public concessions and makes them genuflect in public.

But Donald Trump is powerless against the determination of ordinary Canadians. As powerless as Mr. Boycott, as powerless as the English overlords in India, as powerless as the racist state in Alabama, by a people who are united in nonviolent non-co-operation.

Finally, as a very pleasant aside, the Toronto Blue Jays are in sole possession of first place in the American League. Elbows up, Blue Jays! 

Featured Links - July 22, 2025

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

Sunset along the 401

• Five days, 65 km, 86,000 steps — and one restless city: I walked all the way across Toronto. This is what I saw (archive link). I am waiting for the Eglinton Crosstown to open and plan to ride it across Toronto, perhaps with stops at some of the stations on the underground part of the line. 
• A Juicy Chronicle of the Fat Decades at Condé Nast (gift link). Empire of the Elite, by Michael M. Grynbaum, is a story of (mostly) insider-outsiders who helmed the glossiest American magazines in their heyday." I miss magazines and browsing the racks in stores like Lichtman's, now sadly defunct. 
• Why Did the Rich Pull Away from the Rest? 'This is Part I of Stone Center Senior Scholar Paul Krugman’s series “Understanding Inequality,” which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter.' This is an important series of articles and worth the time to read.
• Published Via Desktop. 'A list of programs from the all-too-brief golden era of desktop publishing that “didn’t make it.” The GUI’s killer app didn’t slay forever.' Out of the 10 programs listed in the article, I used two: Aldus PageMaker and Venture Publisher. 
• The Peptide Craze. "The Surge in Use of Off-Label and Non-FDA Approved Peptides." TANSTAAFL. 
• Terry Gilliam Reflects On ‘Brazil’ As Film Celebrates 40th Anniversary & The Challenges Of Getting Movies Made Today: “I Really Don’t Want Any More Fights” I really must rewatch Brazil; it's one of my favourite movies. 
• Alberta’s Book Ban Is a Blatant Act of Cultural Vandalism. "The push to sanitize school collections erases what literature is for: knowledge, discovery, the freedom to think." I am sad to see this happening in Canada. 
• The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations. "I would like to address the recent slander circulating on social media, in editorial Slack channels, and in the margins of otherwise decent Substack newsletters. Specifically, the baseless, libelous accusation that my usage is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence."
• Radical New Theory Rewrites the Story of the Earliest Universe. "A new theory promises to simplify our approach to the universe's earliest moments, but some cosmologists say further mathematical scrutiny is warranted." Simplification is good. 

Saturday Sounds - Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth

This week's musical treat is a double album from Kamasi Washington, one of my favourite modern jazz musicians. He's a saxophonist much in the tradition of Pharoah Sanders, capable of everything from quiet melodic runs to blasting, braying honks. His albums run the gamut of jazz genres and mix in rap, hip hop, rock, and orchestral music. I've only seen him perform once, in 2018, and wish he'd come back to Toronto in a hall that had seats. 

Heaven and Earth is a double album that was released in 2019 and somehow blew right by me. I recently heard a track on SiriusXM thinking it was new trak and was surprised that it came from a six-year-old album. The track was "Tiffakonkae" and would be a good one to check out if you don't have time for the whole album. Enjoy.

Photo of the Week - July 20, 2025

This is a grab shot from the (passenger seat) of our car driving along the 401 earlier this week. There was an accident in the other side of the highway and traffic was backed up for more than a kilometer. It does make one wonder about the dependance of our modern economy on truck traffic and the failure of modern railway systems to take more of that business. Taken with my Pixel 8 Pro and cropped in Google Photos.

Trucks on the 401

 

We're Toast 61

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. 

US climate change policy 

Note: I created the image above Microsoft's Copilot AI tool. It took about three minutes and three prompts to get something close to what I wanted.

• After 100 days of upheaval, what’s next for U.S. science? "Fights over research spending and pending court rulings loom large." 
• Will US science survive Trump 2.0? "President Donald Trump and his administration have gutted science agencies, terminated research programmes and cancelled billions of dollars in grants to universities. What are the long-term impacts for the United States and the world?"
• It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost. '“We have failed to shift the narrative and we are still caught up in the same legal, economic and political systems,” said David Suzuki in an exclusive interview with iPolitics. “For me, what we’ve got to do now is hunker down.”'
• Climate Change is Trying to Kill Me. "It's here and it's personal." True for Nancy and me too. 
• What the Fastest-Growing Christian Group Reveals About America. (archive link) "Instead of killing off faith, modernity has supercharged some of its most dramatic manifestations.:
• ‘Could become a death spiral’: scientists discover what’s driving record die-offs of US honeybees. "Experts scrambling to understand losses in hives across the country are finally identifying the culprits. And the damage to farmed bees is a sign of trouble for wild bees too."
• It's not just about measles. "Measles is a canary in the coal mine. When measles reappears in a country like the U.S., it signals that something has gone seriously wrong. This is a disease we had essentially eliminated—thanks to one of the safest and most effective vaccines in the history of medicine. But the way things are heading, the U.S. is at risk of losing its elimination status this year. This is not just a failure to move forward—it’s the unraveling of decades of progress, representing one of the greatest public health achievements of our era."
• How the little-known ‘dark roof’ lobby may be making US cities hotter. "As cities heat up, reflective roofs could lower energy bills and help the climate. But dark-roofing manufacturers are waging a quiet campaign to block new rules."
• Deadly drug-resistant fungus spreading fast across US, WHO raises alarm. "A deadly, drug-resistant fungus, Aspergillus fumigatus, is spreading rapidly across the US, posing serious risks to people with weak immunity as climate change fuels its growth and resistance." If you think the planet is out to get us, you may be right.
• A 100 ft 'mega tsunami' could hit the US at any moment. And that’s only the beginning. "This could be the biggest disaster in US history, and it just got a whole lot worse." Look up the term "ghost forest" and what can cause them.

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. 

Photo of the Week - July 13, 2025

This week's photo is of a couple of roses in our front yard. When we bought the house, there was a bush of these beautiful peachy pink roses in the front. One bad winter killed it off, or so we thought. It came back a year later, but with a different colour of flowers. We found some of the original variety of roses and planted a new bush that has since thrived and flowered.

I'm not sure of the variety of rose. Google Lens suggests Rosa Veranda. If you know the variety, please let me know in the comments.

This was taken with my Pixel 8 Pro, which works quite well for flower pictures. 

Roses

Saturday Sounds - Bruce Srpingsteen - Tracks II: The Lost Albums

This weeks musical treat is the latest and massive release from Bruce Springsteen: Tracks II, The Lost Albums. It consists of seven albums worth of music that Springsteen recorded between 1983 and 2018 but never released.  

•  LA Garage Sessions '83
• Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
• Faithless
• Somewhere North of Nashville
• Inyo
• Twilight Hours
• Perfect World 

So far, I've only listened to the first two discs and sampled a few tracks from the others. Though I am a fan of Springsteen's music, I'm a bit underwhelmed. I will probably go through it and set up a playlist of the songs that I like. Still, there are good songs in here and it's worth a listen. 

Detecting and Fighting Disinformation

I was going to do yet another blog post with articles pointing out examples of misinformation and disinformation (there's just SO much of it right now), but instead I wanted to highlight some sites and tools that you can use to detect disinformation. 

Note: Although I use the term "disinformation" for simplicity in this and other posts, you can assume everything here applies to misinformation. 

• 20 Helpful Verification Tools for Journalists. Although aimed at journalists, the tools linked in this article will be useful to anyone. Verify location, whether an image has been modified, spot AI-generated content, and more. 
• Wikipedia's list of fake news websites. "Fake news websites are those which intentionally, but not necessarily solely, publish hoaxes and disinformation for purposes other than news satire. Some of these sites use homograph spoofing attacks, typosquatting and other deceptive strategies similar to those used in phishing attacks to resemble genuine news outlets."
• Disinformation Designed to Ingrain Erroneous Beliefs and Lies. "Google search can bring results that confirm disinformation, not debunk it." Tips on how to spot disinformation in Google Search results. 
• Joint Advisory: Cyber officials warn Canadians of malicious campaign to impersonate high-profile public figures, from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. "Cyber security officials in the Government of Canada are warning Canadians about a spike in malicious cyber activity, where threat actors are using text and AI-generated voice messages impersonating senior officials and prominent public figures to steal money and information." Includes tips, guidelines, and links to useful resources.
• How to Spot and Combat Health Misinformation. 'While recent events have magnified the problem, misinformation “is not necessarily a new phenomenon. It has been around for centuries,” said Kylie Hall, M.P.H., Operations Director for the Center for Immunization Research and Education at North Dakota State University, during a session at ASM Microbe in June 2022. Misinformation gains traction in periods of uncertainty, as people try to make sense of events when verified facts are lacking. Various factors, including social media, contribute to the dissemination of misinformation. Learning how to spot and correct it—and help others do the same—can slow the spread of misinformation now, and in the future.'

2025 World Fantasy Award Finalists

The ballot for the 2025 World Fantasy Awards has been announced. The awards are voted on by a panel of judges and will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention later this year.

These are the finalists for the best novel award.

• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey/Hodderscape)
• The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo (Henry Holt & Co./Quercus)
• The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister (Counterpoint Press/Titan Books)
• The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman (Viking/Del Rey)
• The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills (Tachyon Publications)

I've not read any of the nominees and given my preference for science fiction over fantasy, it's unlikely that I will. 

Featured Links - July 7, 2025

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

A hydrangea in our backyard

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

Photo of the Week - July 6, 2025

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

Daisies

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

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

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

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings

The Blues Holler

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

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

Movie and TV Reviews - June 2025

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

I may have missed a couple of items; I accidentally overwrote the original post. 

Movies

• The Accountant: A thriller about an autistic accountant who serves bad guys. Quite well done.
• The Accountant 2: Not as good as the original. If there's another one, we won't bother. 

TV Shows

• Injustice: A lawyer gets called up to defend an old friend. Who's the guilty one? Quite twisty and well written. (Acorn TV)
• Hinterland (seaons 1-3): A police procedural set in rural Wales. I don't know which is grimmer: the landscape, the weather, or the inhabitants. Well done but dark. 
• Antiques Road Trip (season 9): Our journey through England in search of treasure continues. (Acorn TV)

Happy Canada Day

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

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

Here's some colourful natural fireworks from our backyard.

Backyard flowers