Category: o canada

two blue herons

standing in a field at the edge of Burlington; standing close enough to be together, but obliquely apart, like a couple who have said all they ever will.

big bogging box

Every day, I walk past some fields in Burlington. They’re alive with the ringing of crickets, the autumn crops are coming on nicely, and Canada geese pad around warily. Idyllic, no?

Today I discover that this is slated to become a Wal-Mart. Yuk! Can there be anything more hideous than a Wal-Mart? Always Low Wages … Always! should be their motto. Catherine’s hometown square has been destroyed by a gargantuan Mal-Wart just outside the city limits. These stores are ugly, and they smell.

I don’t often find myself agreeing with a Toronto Sun columnist, but Marianne Meed Ward wrote:

What’s right and fair is a living wage. Until Wal-Mart (and other discount retailers, restaurants and businesses) provide it, it’s not ethical to shop there.

in her June 27th column, titled Lining up for poverty.

So, please, Burlington Ontario doesn’t need another Wal-Mart. It needs green spaces.

only in toronto

A dude playing a fusion of traditional Scottish airs and free jazz on an electric bassoon in Union subway station.

late groundhog

Saw one this evening, near Appleby. Guess it’s getting pretty late for them to be about.

bad scene on Kennedy Road

There’s a big do at the Salaheddin Islamic Centre this weekend. It seems that there’s some convention being held by the Muslim Ummah of North America. Yesterday, there was a small but very heated demonstration, with a group of people being very opposed to a particular person being present. Obligatory placards, shouting and police cars; you know the deal.

I still haven’t been able to work out what this was about. If I find out more, I’ll post it.

dark stain ahead

To avoid the rain, and in order to become sufficiently caffeinated for work, I ducked into a Tim Hortons and opened up my Toronto Public Library book, Jane Jacobs’s Dark Age Ahead.

I thought I heard my phone ring, and in reaching for it, I upended my almost-full medium black coffee all over the book. Horrible mess, pages stuck together, much nastiness.

This evening I dragged my sheepish carcase into the local library to explain what happened. The only way I could pay for a replacement book was to “lose” the book. I have to say, it reads pretty well for a “lost” book, but the smell of cheap, over-roasted coffee isn’t so great.

more vawts, yawn

boingboing picked up on Worldchanging‘s story about Former Soviet Weapon Designers Take On Wind Power, claiming ‘this one is supposed to be quieter and less hazardous to birds’. I just had to comment:

Sigh, yet another vertical axis wind turbine claiming world-changing characteristics. Wind Sail are to be congratulated for keeping their efficiency numbers in the realms of the possible. Many companies have sprung up claiming efficiencies (Cp) of greater that 16/27, the Betz Limit, or theoretical efficiency limit of a wind turbine.

Reducing the tip speed ratio reduces the efficiency of the device, so the Wind Sail’s Cp of 28% at 12m/s is quite a bit lower than a typical horizontal axis machine (like the Lagerwey LW900, which has a Cp of 34% at 12m/s).

This machine is miles ahead of the modified Savonius (drag) turbines that some manufacturers are touting. But still, very few knowledgeable wind engineers would advocate roof-mounting a wind turbine. There are issues with turbulence and vibration, not to mention that built-up areas tend to be quite sheltered.

I also take issue with their claims about fewer bird kills. Any structure kills birds. Buildings and windows kill over 5000x more birds than wind turbines, and cats more than 1000x (source: Bird and bat kills and other effects, AWEA ). It would be a very dizzy raptor that could sit on top of a running vertical axis wind turbine.

Vertical axis machinery is not some magical energy source suppressed by The Great Conspiracy. They were the subject of huge development projects in the 1970s and 1980s. There were problems with fatigue, higher costs, and lower operating efficiencies than horizontal axis machines. I design wind farms for a living, and I don’t know of a single utility-scale vertical axis machine that is operating, let alone available for commercial purchase.

The aerospace industries have had limited success in developing viable wind turbines. NASA, Boeing and MAN all tried developing machines, but could never bring a machine to market. It’s interesting to note that most of the successful companies now manufacturing wind turbines started out in agricultural engineering, not aerospace.

Renfest ’04

Hawk Landing
(links to my Renfest gallery.)

I went to the Ontario Renfest twice this weekend. On Saturday it was with Chris, Andi, Blair & Norvin (who was taking a little time off from promoting Zenon Membrane Bioreactor technology). Yes, there was merriment, in both liquid and meat form. Oh, and Zoltan the Adequate was indeed more than adequate.

I went again on Sunday, after picking up Catherine from the airport. We mostly went to see the owl at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy flight display.

I think we’ll definitely go again next year. Huzzah!

The Bert Richard Connection

We were over at Cinders and Jules’s place last night. Jules said he used to hang out with Bert, a scary sculptor, while at Aberdeen art school.

Turns out that this Bert is the very same Bert Richard, Dalmallyfest impresario and sweary words enthusiast, who was a frequent visitor to 165 Nithsdale Rd back when we lived there with Neil Martin.

From Toronto to Dalmally; it’s a wee world.