The only downside about being part of the Billboard Battalion is that you get a lot of mail from the city. I get a separate letter for each variance contested, and sometimes duplicates, so I get between four and twelve letters after each community council meeting.
You would have thought they could have stuck them all in one envelope, or used e-mail, to save money and paper. But no; we’re a world class city, after all.
Tag: art
we have sunflowers
the end of poverty in your coffee cup?
I’m not sure what to make of EWB‘s current campaign, which features a future newspaper headline G8 Leaders Declare End of Extreme Poverty. It links to playyourpart.ca, which seems to say that we can end world poverty just by buying fair-trade goods?
I know there’s a lot wrong with the coffee industry (Free Trade Coffee: You Grind The Beans, We Grind The Peasants! Enjoy the smooth trickle-down flavour, etc) but it’s a simplistic argument. What can the extremely poor sell to us?
I don’t know what to think.
Here do books lurk
Catherine has a project involving Toronto’s libraries, and so I, for no particularly good reason, compiled a geocoded list of the Toronto Public Library system: libraries.gpx
You can thank MapSource for the bloated GPX file. It quadrupled in size when I changed the symbols to look like buildings.
RIP freedb.org
Stewart C. Russell – scruss.com
The move to Teksavvy has finally goaded me into moving my old Sympatico pages to scruss.com. Considering they’re still using 2003-style markup, I think they look quite smooth.
convert an angle to a bearing in excel
I can’t believe I had difficulty with this one for so long:
 =MOD(450-angle,360)
This assumes you’re measuring the angle in the usual Cartesian way; anticlockwise from the x-axis.
it’s *safe* harbour, you spammy morons
Just received a phishing e-mail that purports to come from eBay Pearl Harbour Security Departament. That’s pretty dumb.
Brett’s Art
We’re going to see the CentralConnection Art show at Withrow Park today. Our friend Brett Hilder is exhibiting.
Well, that was quick …
I started installing OpenBSD 90 minutes ago on the old Thinkpad, and that’s it done. When I get my static IP, I have plans …
RE Imaginations – Renewable Energy Art
I was about to rush off and tell Emma Jane about RE Imaginations – Renewable Energy Art, when I discovered she exhibits on it already.
(They had a nifty display at AWEA, and I just bought an Aleksandar Rodic print.)
Stewart’s Images :: AWEA 2006
Stewart’s Images :: AWEA 2006 – pictures from the floor of the American Wind Energy Association trade show and conference, Pittsburgh, PA – June 4-7, 2006
AWEA06: by the river (or in it, nearly)
We’re not getting the best weather for the conference, but I hear that the coincidentally-running Three Rivers Arts Festival has had rain 18 out of the 20 years it has run, so noone’s surprised.
Conference hasn’t quite started yet, but the preliminary swag is quite promising; yoyos and balsa aircraft.
I spent the day in workshop run by KidWind, who have a school science kit for teaching the basics of wind turbine effectiveness. We got to build wind turbines, and test them. Here’s mine, big wean that I am:
I guess I got some losses near the hub there, but at least it worked. I was the only developer type there (there was a DoE person, and lots and lots of Pennsylvania teachers). I came away impressed, and hope I can work with Michael Arquin of KidWind to bring the project to Ontario.
(This post has the worst GPS location ever; could only get a fix to within 100m, so that’s why the map location appears to be in the river.)
I’ll be your terrorist for the evening…
I’m at YYZ, and despite the Canadian passport, I’m still Mr Designated Searched Guy. Thought that the passport might’ve changed things, but no. Sigh…
It does mean I no longer have to do those dumb visa waiver things, yay!
And it didn’t help that part of one of the lighting panels started to fall off inside the cabin before takeoff, so we had to taxi back, get it fixed, and head back out an hour later. Gotta love Air Canada.
big big blades
Visiting Siemens’ factory in Aalborg, we saw the blade fabrication process. I was pleasantly surprised to discovered that a major component of their blades is balsa wood, which, when combined with clear glass fibre and epoxy, makes a lovely organic-looking surface. It’s a shame that they have to be painted, but environmental degradation will always get ya in the end.
These blades are big:
The above is a 45m blade being loaded onto a truck.
Here is a bunch of 45m blades waiting to be finished and painted. You’ll note that there’s still some mould flash on the edge of the blade; that gets ground off. The submarine-like thing on the right is the truly colossal Siemens B52 blade (as a lifelong fan of Kate, Cindy, Ricky, Keith and Fred, the name alone made me happy, even if I knew it denoted a 52m blade). It was so large our entire party managed to stand inside the blade root, with no stooping required.
so it is true!
First-class airport lounges really do have free beer taps and open spirits gantries. It’s quite the opposite of the little shed that the Midwestern flights depart YYZ from.
… until someone puts an eye out, of course
Can I just say that styrofoam plate + cocktail sticks (the ones with the little fletches on them) + milkshake straw = teh fun blowdart game?
i saw saws
You have got to see these folks! The Singing Saw Shadow Show were amazing the other night; wild raucous lo-fi that had me on the edge of my seat. I must get the old saw out and rosin the bow.
The support were interesting. Pyramid Culture, while better than Better Than Everyone, are okay if you want to learn about the perils of artificial sweeteners, face transplants and parasitic foetal twins. Faun Fables produced their art-rock pantomime The Transit Rider; fun, and with a fab rendition of The House Carpenter, too.
But go and see this Singing Saw Shadow Show if and when you can. They will blow you away.
Sarah’s Solar Art
Sarah Hall works with glass and light, and her most recent commission for Regent College in BC combines solar photovoltaics and an LED light show into the installation. It’s a beautiful design, and I’d like to thank Sarah for inviting me to the official unveiling yesterday.
Crappy Lanes: spread the love
Further to Matt Seaton’s article in the Guardian about atrocious cycle facilities, and highlighting Warrington Cycle Campaign’s Facility of the Month, can I just say that Pete Owens of WCC got the idea for the web page from my Crappy Lanes (archive.org copy) site?